Touching God
by Cyren
Summary: Amon is on the war path to save a lost friend who gave her life for his. This time, it's VERY personal. Sequel to IRISH HEART
1. Crawling

TOUCHING GOD 

_Time here,_

_all but means nothing, just shadows that move across the wall_

_They keep me company, but they don't ask of me_

_they don't say nothing at all._

Time means nothing when you just don't care. It stretches on forever and ever, but doesn't really at the same time. Yes, there s monotony, but there is salvation in the thought that it means nothing at all.

_And I need just a little more silence_

_And I need just a little more time_

Time meant nothing to the once great Kathain Bowen, Oracle to the Thirteen, Seer Among Seers, and Keeper of the Distant Mirror. It meant absolutely nothing when the power to keep and to use time had fallen into dark hands. She desperately longed to be away from that, but they would not let her. Instead, the powerful precognitive had slipped between the cracks, into a reality in which she just allowed apathy to swallow her whole.

It was Zaizen's doing. All of it. All those terrible, awful things were done by the hands of Solomon. Not of Kathain.

_But you send your thieves to me_

_silently stalking me_

_Dragging me into your wall_

_Would you give me no choice in this?_

_I know you can't resist, trying reopen a sore_

And, yet, her gifts had been the source of such death and suffering.

Kathain hated herself, straight down to the core. It had been months since the girl felt this way, felt the sorrow and sadness eating her from the inside out, tearing away at the temple of her very heart and soul. But this was what she deserved. Kathain had allowed all of this to happen, and, as such, the girl had to live with the guilt, the knowledge that her information had caused the torture of many.

It had been, afterall, her choice.

_Leave me be, I don't want to argue_

_I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone_

_If I agree, well, it's just to appease you_

_Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for_

They all had their roles, their little parts to play in the grand scheme of things.

Kathain abandoned hers that night in the Vatican when she handed herself over to Solomon. She shuffled loose the mantle of Oracle and drifted out of existence, out of the real world and into a fake world of darkness and false sunlight.

She betrayed her position.

The girl deserved anything that came to her as a result. Kathain had knowingly turned her back on the Thirteen, left their side, and left the battle. She was meant to be there, with Nycole, keeping the Thirteen safe and sound.

And, yet, now, she had become the puppet of Solomon.

_You see lovea tight, thorny thread that you spin in a circle of gold_

_You have me to hold me_

_a token for all to see_

_captured to be yours alone_

It had started rather simply, with quaint tests to prove her might and ancient glory. They made her play the lottery, and win. They made her pick out baseball games and horse races. And she did. Kathain played their little game back, answering their questions out of fear, fear for Amon and the Thirteen. She allowed this to occur, but kept the others in her heart, secreted away.

And, then, the games became more hostile.

_And I need just a little more silence,_

_and I just need a little more time_

It still hurt so badly, to see the image of what she had done. The smoldering cabin of a major passenger plane still blazed brightly in her mind. The twisted remains of a high speed train gleamed in the shadow of the distant mirror. These were her doing. These events had been caused by the knowledge Kathain shared with Solomon.

Zaizen saw nothing wrong with telling her.

_The courage to pull away_

_there will be hell to pay_

_the deeper you cut to the bone_

Kathain cried for hours.

She had become the very thing the girl hated and feared. Kathain had become too powerful, a weapon of murder and destruction. It was the very reason she had tried to take her life so may times before.

Kathain had longed to protect the world from herself.

_Leave me be, I don't want to argue_

_I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone_

_If I agree, well, it's just to appease you_

_Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for_

But Brett, he stopped her, again and again. He could come across her, committing some horrific act of self-hatred, and the elemental would stop her. If it came too late, Brett would call upon Nycole to help bind the wounds and heal the soul. And, if he feared it would happen again, the young man would call upon Kristo keep watch from the shadows, where no eyes could see him.

However, here, in this place, there was no Brett or Nycole to orchestrate ways to save Kathain from herself.

_Time here,_

_all but means nothing,_

_just shadows that move across the wall_

_They keep me company, but they don't ask of me_

_they don't say nothing at all._

She smashed the glass soundly against a desk, feeling the broken shards sprinkle over her feet and stab lightly at the flesh. The girl ignored it, feeling a deeper drive and ration than ever. She just crouched down and selected a piece of glass, like a child picking shells at the beach.

Kathain used to do that, in another lifetime. She had collected shells as a young girl, along the Jersey shore. Maybe, in the next lifetime, the precognitive would do the same.

_Leave me be, I don't want to argue_

_I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone_

_If I agree, well, it's just to appease you_

Cause I don't remember what we're fighting for 

The glass dragged across her wrist with a welcoming sigh from Kathain.

The world had become a dark place, and it was all her fault.

xxxx

"KATHAIN!"

Amon jumped awake in the middle of the night, his body covered in a cold sweat. The hunter reached to his side, but found nothing. The other half of the bed was occupied only by a jumbled mess of blankets, and not the girl he had been searching for. Dread filled Amon's heart at the very notion of what could have been happening to Kathain at that very moment.

"Rough night?"

The former hunter glanced up, seeing Geoff leaning against the doorframe; Amon swallowed. "Yes."

"Nycole's been having nightmares again. You're probably feeling the shockwaves from it." The bartender sounded so matter-of-fact about it, as though this happened all the time. "She's radiating."

"What?" Robin whispered from her air mattress, having been roused by the commotion.

Geoff closed his eyes slowly. "Nycole's an empath. She feels what other people feel. No." He wrung his hands. "More than that. When she's really upset or emotionally charge, she can radiate it out. Infect other people with her emotions." The bartender looked away. "She's making us dream her nightmare."

"Kathain…" Amon whispered.

Geoff nodded. "Yes." He sighed heavily. "It's what Kathain's feeling right now."

"We need to find her."

Brett put a hand on Geoff's shoulder, appearing in the hall behind him from nowhere. "She's saying something about America."

Amon clenched a fist. "Then we need to go there."

xxxx

Welcome to TOUCHING GOD. My, I am a globetrotting fic writer.


	2. Heaven Sent

TOUCHING GOD 

There are myths in the world.

So many myths.

As soon as something unusual happens, man immediately strives to explain it away with some rational reason, some logical assumption. At least, that is how Man explains the myths. He ignores the possibility that some myths might just be true and tries to say that all myths are just a fictional adaptation to cope with some inexplicable event or thing.

But what if there truly are inexplicable events or things?

Humans like to believe that there is nothing unique or unusual about the world, no magic left. However, in the end of time, when science is no longer able to save what little will remain of man, there shall be magic. At least, in one sense of the word. The darker, older, far more ancient arts will live on, persisting as they always have and existing into the next realm and the next world beyond this.

Robin wished she could just go back to being one of them, those following humans, like sheep, able to ignore the underside to life.

She glanced to Amon, across from her in the private plan. Somehow, between Michael, Nagira, and a friend of the other's, known only as Markus, they had managed to arrange for a flight on a private jet across the Atlantic from Ireland to the tiny, Atlanta suburb of Roswell. Even more surprising, was the sheer level of plush accommodations. Leather seats, and not too many. A mini bar. The works. Robin half expected a gourmet chef to prepare lunch while they all got massages.

Amon was different, changed. And Nycole was the source of it. He had become sullen, and determined, bitter, it seemed. Amon had returned to his quiet self, fueled by the drive to find Kathain and save her from Solomon. The man sounded and acted exactly as he had at the STN-J. He seemed to revel in every minute of it, feeling completely at home. In truth, he almost reminded Robin of a child, completely excited and enthralled by the vast possibilities spread before him.

But it still bothered her.

And this all stemmed from Nycole.

The empathy had done something to Amon, deep in the confines of Dun Aengus. The girl had changed him somehow, made him confront the destiny they offered, and accept it. It was all the empath's fault.

Robin wondered, absently, what exactly Nycole had done.

Shortly after Dun Aengus, Amon contacted Michael while Brett worked directly with Markus in trying to secure their travel. They needed to regroup, and to arm. The only place to do that seemed to be with Markus, whoever this strange fellow was. And the only place to find him was a little town just north of Atlanta, oddly named Roswell. From there, the rag tag little band of Warriors could form a plan, and strike out to free their friend.

It only took a few hours to see them leaving the seeming safety and security of Lauren's flat in Dublin, bound for the private jet and, then, winging their way across the glittering ocean, across the deep.

And, then, the quiet set it. Amon, Brett, and the other Warriors turned to their work. Kristo sat, working out an arrangement for a secure channel from the plane to Michael and, also, to Markus. The shadow walker sat, instant messaging and shopping, creating a list of supplies and arms they would need to survive this battle that Amon seemed to be planning. Thus far, the former sniper just assumed overkill and kept sending more and more list items for Markus to secure upon their arrival. Amon, meanwhile, typed away, conversing with the STN-J's resident hacker.

He seemed so distant, so changed. Like Sakaki. Haruto sat beside Nycole, looking over her shoulder. Both of the hunters had been so resolved in their lot to life, chasing down witches wherever they hid. Now, the pair had sold their souls to some unknown cause and battle that none of the Thirteen ever understood yet. Robin pondered what had changed in them.

"_I made him see the truth,"_ the empathy whispered from her seat, crooning the words into Robin's mind, reading her doubts and fears.

The girl blinked but focused harder, trying to ignore the pervasive voice in her mind, the feeling of being violated and exposed. She burrowed her nose deeper into the book at hand, but loosing the words in a blur. Nycole altered Robin's visual focus, forcing the girl to concentrate on the matter at hand.

"_Don't try to ignore it. You know this is what he needs to do."_

Assertively, Robin flipped the page, slamming the thing down in annoyance at the mental invasion.

"_Fine, go on and pretend. Have fun with your games and delusions."_

Mentally, Robin scoffed, practically spitting on Nycole's little display. The empathy had all but fingered the Craft user a child. And, yet, in the grand scheme of things, maybe Robin was a child. That didn't stop her from being rather irked by their patronizing attitude towards her.

Nycole didn't really care at the moment. She was too busy searching what little they'd brought from Japan with them. Here was her hair ties. She and Kathain had been wearing them the day of the Solomon raid, just for fun. They were long, ribbon bits, in black and crimson. The empathy put them aside. There, was the little sketch the two girls had been playing with over the counter that evening, toying with various little caricatures.

The book.

Nycole dreamt of it, recalling the little, leather bound tome that Kathain always carried. The empath knew her friend couldn't have thought to grab the journal and take it with her. Secretly, Nycole wished they had the book, and some of the secrets the precognitive had scrawled therein.

Amon ignored the girls, typing away at a computer. "Have you cracked it yet?"

Michael's voice responded in garbled frequencies over the connection. "Yes, but I'm not entirely sure if it's what you're looking for."

"Send it."

"Well, it could be her location, or it could be Solomon's last pizza order. I could be wrong, but it looks like she's being kept here." Almost instantly, files began to come up, displaying a map and pinpointing a location in Washington D.C. somewhere. "Lucky thing you were already heading across the Pond, so to speak."

Amon didn't believe in luck anymore. He hadn't really, but, like most humans, the hope that the stars, moons, and charms would keep them safe, had been a comforting one. No, as the man gave a sideways glance to Nycole, his previous notions of luck melted away. There was no luck anymore, not with this group, not with Nycole or Kathain. There was no blessings and charms that could keep them. This was fate, destiny, something far greater than chance coincidence and rabbit feet combined.

But this wasn't something Amon would dare admit to Michael.

The man didn't even admit it to himself, let alone anyone else. No, Amon darkly desired for all of this to be just be random chance occurrence. But, it wasn't. It was no accident that Nycole dreamt the night before of America, of their home. When she had awoken, Nycole immediately told Brett of how the empath missed Atlanta, how they needed to go right back to Atlanta, back to the beginning.

And, so, they were returning to where it all started, to the sprawling metropolis, belle of the south. They were taking a pilgrimage together, into the past.

Sakaki had heard whispers of Atlanta and what had happened there ages before, but no one had ever told him exactly what transpired in that Southern relic of gentry. For the most part, the others seemed to be quite contented to ignore the events that forced them to flee for the far flung islands of Japan, and for Kristo's little house in the countryside. Even then, Haruto could see the hesitation and trepidation at the thoughts of returning home to Atlanta, written in each and every one of them. Except for Bear and Raven, who seemed happy enough to sleep through most of the journey.

Kristo, once done placing his weapons order to Markus paced anxiously up and down the long length of the plane. Rumor had it, the shadow walker had left family in Atlanta. A mother, and a brother. Along with a step father the man didn't quite seem to care for. But who knew with Kristo, some days?

Geoff just sat meditating, obviously unsettled and attempting to center himself.

And Brett? The fire elemental had gone online to continue ordering through Markus. Sakaki could have died at the thoughts of an American equivalent to Nagira, however, they seemed to hold this newcomer to the situation with cool regard, keeping their distance. It seemed like they weren't exactly eager to see the man, just the weapons he would provide.

Apparently, when damned, it payed to have connections.

Haruto sighed heavily, sinking back into the chair beside Nycole, and gazing up to the cabin's white ceiling. "You think this will work?"

"Kathain would know," the empath murmured in a meek voice.

Sakaki nodded. Kathain and Nycole had been inseparable, forced to bear this terrible burden and aid the Thirteen, just as Haruto had. But, while Sakaki chose to walk into that situation, Kathain and Nycole had been ordained by the powers of time and destiny, not by free will and choice. The empath needed the precognitive, as much as the Thirteen needed the pair of coppery haired lasses.

Haruto slid an arm around the girl. "We're almost there…"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

xxxx

Life.

Life.

Death.

Things were mutable anymore. Alive. Dead. Who cared? It didn't matter in the end. They were things that HAD to exist. If they died, they would just be reborn. It was like being some sad, sappy hero in a video game, chasing after the princess until killed, only to resurrect and start the level all over again. It didn't matter if anyone died this time around. They'd just wait for the next chance.

That was how it always had been.

The world blurred around Kathain, veiling her in distortion and trapping her deep behind the distant mirror, behind time immemorial. She had fallen into time, into the fabric of the universe.

And, yet, the girl hadn't.

Voices were over her, above the world and the clouds themselves, the booming, thundering voice of God. "She's stabilizing."

Things didn't make sense anymore.

But, then again, when had they ever?

xxxx

IHOP.

There has never been a better institution, at least, that's what Nycole thought. Where else could you go at 4:00 in the morning for a cup of coffee, breakfast foods, and dinner at the same time? Nowhere. Where else could you order pancakes and a hamburger at the same time? Nowhere. Well, some would argue Waffle House, but WaHo only took cash, not credit/debit cards. The group had grown used to the seedy lighting and sticky, vinyl upholstered booths before everything had happened, when many of them were in college and only carried debit cards. It was vogue at the time, and easy.

They instinctively returned right to the IHOP, knowing their connection would meet them there. Nycole's hunger and craving for stuffed French toast died, squelched out of existence by the thought of the man they were meeting and the possible news he had.

At that moment, in the dark of the night, Nycole both loved and loathed the IHOP.

Years and years ago, when Geoff and Kristo first started working there, Geoff had put his mark across the place. The bartender had seen and learnt of their true destiny, confirmed it through Markus. Anxious to see things out, and to bring about a smoother transition to the life they needed to live, Geoff placed his mark about the diner, using his symbol. Kathain would have dared to even call it his "sacred name," the name that whispered the man into existence. It was that sigil that had drawn them all there.

Nycole surveyed the place, feeling the same, chiming energies welcoming her, along with a deep, bass melody crooning in the background of Markus's spirit. "The more things change…"

"Neon sign's still up," Geoff teased at the thought, ignoring the empath's obvious unease.

Robin shrugged as the entire group entered the restaurant, assaulted by the sickly sweet aroma of baking breakfast foods, fragranced cleaning chemicals, and old deserts from earlier that night. If the thoughts of Markus hadn't been enough to turn the girl's stomach, that agonizingly saccharine odor was. The teenage witch placed her hand over her nose, hoping the kitchen staff would clean up soon.

She hated this world that Amon had dragged her into, full of these people and places, but Robin would never say such a word. Instead, she just followed at the back, listening as they entered the hazy smoking section, heading for the back booths.

Someone the fire starter couldn't see beyond Amon's shoulder greeted them, a male voice dripping with sarcasm and cynicism they didn't need. "Well, look what the cat dragged in." The male purred over the words, clearly pleased with himself and these turns of events that brought the Thirteen back to him. "Or, should I say, Kathain?"

Brett returned the salutation, dipping his head slightly in acknowledgement of the presence. "Evening, Markus."

"Come, sit. We have _much_ to talk about."

xxxx

Ah, home at last. I forgot to give song creds to Sarah McLachlan for "Time."


	3. Mutation

TOUCHING GOD 

Stable.

Stable.

Stable.

_Dying._

Stable.

_Dying._

Life and death seemed to alternate now.

Kathain was alive, for now. Solomon had found her before she could finish the deed. Actually, Zaizen himself had come for one of their daily appointments and stumbled across the girl, quite literally, in the dark of her "apartment." It was Zaizen who called for help, just as Brett would have on any of her darker nights. He "saved" her.

Stabilized was really the better term.

Even the doctors spoke around the girl in hushed tones, as if over a deathbed. In truth, if Kathain had the breathe to speak, the precognitive would probably have whispered, too. The room held that somber, oppressively solemn atmosphere that begged for quiet, like the New York Library, or the formerly impressive St. Peters, even St. Patrick's Cathedral. It stifled any words, smothering the even the natural human need to breech the silence.

_Speak with dead, Kathain._

Yes, stable really was the best term for the situation. The girl drifted in and out of consciousness, fading in and out of reality. Clarity fell away. Kathain didn't feel alive, or dead, really.

And the dreams, they came faster, harder.

It was as though the mirror held her fast, forcing the girl to see such brutal and violent things. And, yet, Kathain knew it was not really her gift's fault exactly. It was the drugs. So many chemicals injected into her body to keep the girl alive. They destroyed any semblance of control in regards to the girl's strange sight. They kept her from being able to avoid the terrible things her gift made the girl see. Kathain now saw it all, saw everything that would ever happen.

But it all came so fast, that she just didn't seem strong enough to keep hold of one, singular vision.

_Death is coming._

Kathain had always known that. The question was really, who?

xxxx

"So, how _has _your little journey been?"

Markus sang the words with a demented sort of glee as the witches slid into their places in the booths, taking up a grand deal of space. Robin felt sick, but Sakaki just sat beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder, as if trying to still her thumping heart.

This new stranger, Markus, seemed all too delighted at the return of the witches to America. In his vaguely Hispanic features, and dark, chocolate brown eyes, Markus held nothing but intrigue and amusement at the sights of these bedraggled few. The man seemed all too pleased and keen to their plight, smoothing his mustache and curly, dark hair mock coyly. Immediately, Robin hated the way Markus could fix his gaze upon you, as if seeing deep into the soul, to your innermost, darkest secrets, and expose them all at once. The man was unsettling and downright creepy to say the least. Especially that smile, a Cheshire Cat grin that spread almost demonically from ear to ear.

Markus was a dangerous element, no question.

Even Amon regarded the newcomer as such, keeping his distance. Robin liked that, but, as the girl recalled, her former partner kept distance between himself and everyone.

"Do you go and find yourselves off wherever you went?" Markus chirped, feeling light.

Robin didn't like the sounds of that.

Brett shook his head. "No. But we did find them." He gave a gesture to Robin, Amon, and Sakaki. "Fellow refugees."

Markus rested a darkly knowing gaze on Amon. "Interesting. Thirteen."

"Yes…" Amon whispered.

The man nodded slowly. "I know." Markus pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat and lit one, taking a long drag from it. "I'm abandoned, not stupid, for crying out loud."

Nycole felt disquieted. There was something behind the man's tone of voice that the empath didn't like at all. A hungering lingering within Markus, dark desires of power and greed. It was that same lusting that had driven the band from the familiar shores of America to half away around the world. Actually, no, it was how Markus had acted upon those baser instincts of his that sent them fleeing their once friend.

The empath didn't like where this was heading already; she grabbed Robin's arm and went to drag her from the booth. "Come with me."

Amon watched curious as the two girls left, but Markus addressed the man again.

"Welcome to America."

xxxx

It was a bad day when Nycole smoked even one cigarette.

It was an even worse day when the girl went out to go and actually buy her own pack of cigarettes. It was damn near the apocalypse when the empath wanted to buy a pack of Djarum Blacks. There was a reason the group affectionately called them "black sticks of death."

Today was one of those days.

Nycole hoped desperately that Robin wouldn't figure that out.

The girl walked uneasily beside her companion as they crossed the IHOP parking lot for a small, local tobacco shop. It had been ages since the empath had gone there in search of a pack of cloves, but the shop hadn't changed a bit. The telepath had often wondered what divine hand placed coffee and cigarettes so close together.

"Who is that?"

Nycole shook her head, not really wanting to answer. "An old friend, sorta." The girl wandered through the store, perusing the shelves with Robin in tow. "He's… important to the Thirteen."

"What?" the Craft user inquired.

Nycole shook her head. "It's nothing."

xxxx

"Did you get what we needed?"

Markus gave a shrug, mild and capricious. "Maybe."

Geoff glared. "Quit fucking around."

"Yes, I got the things you asked for," the man admitted, giving a flick of his cigarette into an old, long forgotten cup, ashing it quickly. "You don't think I'd leave you hanging, do you? Not my old family."

Brett kept his eyes on the window, clearly casing the place. He kept a sharp lookout for any police or Solomon agents, in addition to just anything suspicious. With Nycole and Robin next door in the tobacco shop, Brett tried to keep an eye on that store, too, peering out the windows with keen interest. His entire body, each and every muscle and instinct was on edge. If the fire elemental could, he would have paced up and down the long length of the diner, primed for action.

But, no. First, they had to play nice with Markus.

"My children have returned to me," the man said sweetly, too sweetly.

"No," Brett corrected him harshly, feeling bitterness rise at Markus's arrogance. "We came back for Kathain."

"Not in the long run."

Xxxx

Sierra was a patient person. She had been for many years. She would be for many more.

The girl studied the bow in grave detail, careful to handle it as gently as possible. If it did belong to the other Thirteen, Sierra wanted to leave as little of an impression upon the old, ebony thing as possible. But, still, she wanted, craved, thirsted for every bit of knowledge that went along with those old myths and those ancient days.

Her fingertips connected with ancient horn.

"Tell me a story."

xxxx

Minutes.

Yes. Minutes.

The more Kathain focused, the more she could feel time. It coursed in and out of her, flowing like a river. No. Like a tide. Each passing wave carried more of time and space through the girl, showing the precognitive another vision.

It slowed.

The drugs had to be wearing off.

Kathain focused, pooling around her every last shred of energy she had, trying to concentrate. If the medications were starting to wear off as much as they seemed to be, Kathain figured on another round of injections shortly. She had a tiny window of time to do what needed to be done and see what the girl needed to see. The more Kathain worked against the chemical blur, the more in focus things became, the more concrete and real the world seemed. Existence congealed into reality. He strength rose, calling upon the mirror and every scrap of her gift.

"Show me…."

The words were but the breaths of a young woman, a sad, haunting call to the strange mirror within. It shimmered, vaguely shifting and dancing behind her eyes.

Then, clarity came to her.

The feel of the hospital bed beneath her became real. The texture of the blankets seemed soft and warm against her flesh. The slight chill peppered her skin.

And the visions solidified into one, cohesive image.

"The Queen has returned."

xxxx

Intrigue!


	4. Road to Roswell

TOUCHING GOD 

"I missed you…"

Brett whispered the words as he sped down the long highway. They were a caravan now, having ridden in the back of Markus's brown pick-up to the old warehouse that the cars had been stored in. When that rag tag band of witches had rushed to flee America, and flee everything that was happening to them, they left their cars in the car of Markus. Granted, there had only been a few of them. Brett's white Honda Civic. Nycole's green Durango. Brett had never been so happy to see his Civic, to drive his own car again.

Saddest of all, was Kathain's car. Her little, red Nissan Sentra had been left to collect dust next to the other cars. Markus had turned it over every week along with the other vehicles, and the car ran just fine. The Warriors couldn't turn down a free ride. Yeet, somehow, none of them, save Raven could bring it upon themselves to actually drive the thing. The runemal took to driving it, pausing only to complain that the older model car barely peaked off at 96 miles per hour.

And, so, they drove off, into the night.

"Where are we going?" Robin inquired softly.

Brett didn't answer. He looked to the road for comfort, for silence and the ability to avoid answering any question. The fire elemental just drove, following Markus's pick-up the entire way, but knowing exactly where they were heading already.

Again, Robin asked the question, pressing harder this time, feeling rather annoyed. "Brett, where are we going?"

"Answer her," Amon growled from the backseat.

Brett sighed heavily. "We're going to the bunker."

It seemed like the simplest answer of all. No explanation. No need. It just was. Someone had once said that, no matter how bad life seemed, it couldn't always get better or worse. It just was. So you just had to suck it up and live. Right then, Brett hoped that Robin and Amon would heed such a warning.

Instead, Robin's curiosity got the better of her. "You seem rather prepared for all of this."

"Markus, Geoff, and Kristo had been ready for this long before any of us came to Atlanta. They were smart about it," Brett replied nonchalantly.

Before he could even form the wish that Robin would just allow the subject to die right then and there, the fire starter inquired further, demanding further knowledge on the situation. "Brett, tell me the truth." The girl's emerald eyes narrowed to deadly slits. "How long have you known?"

"About Amon?"

Robin shook her head. "No. About all of this?"

"Three years," Brett heaved the words with a deep exhalation. "Geoff's known for about six, maybe seven years now."

Had it really been that long? Brett was surprised. Time had flown since he first met Geoff and Kristo at the IHOP. It seemed like ages from when the fire elemental had learned of his true destiny. The time before that, however, had been rather unsavory.

Robin seemed to know exactly where to pry. "When did you find out you were a witch?"

Three days of uncomfortable silence from the girl, and, now, this. Brett had never really been one for sharing. Granted, the fire elemental wasn't as bad as Kristo, but the young man never liked answering questions. Most of the witches were like that. The past didn't matter anymore, really, so what did it matter?

"Ten years ago."

Robin felt the sadness within him. Brett had only been twelve years old. Just a boy. And, then, he had been thrust into manhood by being handed the dark powers within him. Robin had been but a child, too, but she at least had the seeming love and support of the nuns that had taken her in. She also had Father Juliano to guide her. Brett had no one. The young man awoke alone, a fledgling witch with no one to teach him, no one to keep him safe and sound.

He derailed her train of though. "We're almost there."

xxxx

Time.

Her time had come.

Kathain took her chance, slipping away from reality and into the shadow realm that was the fabric of time itself. The Queen had returned. That was a bad sign. After what had happened before, before they left Atlanta, Kathain knew not to trust anything that came down from the Queen's own lips. The girl had learned her lesson well, paying special heed to any dealings with that strange character beyond the moment the witches fled America for Japan.

And, now, the Queen had come back to power.

The Thirteen had returned to America; Kathain knew they would. In truth, the girl had known that her suicide attempt would never work, but the precognitive thought it would have been worth a shot. Something could always be said about free will and conscious choice to do something, no matter how much fate stood against it. Kathain knew all this would happen, in its own time.

And she knew death approached, on black wings.

The girl closed her eyes, letting the visions come to her.

"Geoff…"

xxxx

Into the dark, they were, descending the stairs of the old barn. Amon had raised an eyebrow when the line of cars pulled into the driveway for a long abandoned farm, but he said nothing to Brett or Robin. Instead, the former hunter just watched and waited, patiently, as they drove up to the rotting out barn and stopped. He refused to question, biting his tongue, despite the man's rising curiosity.

Kristo didn't seem to care. He led the way, stepping down each old, warped stair with ease. The barn smelt warm and mellow to him, like days long past and summers spent ignoring chores. The hay in the loft above still remained from years gone, still rustling under the motion of barn mice and a bird or two. This place, the shadow walker had once called home. It was were the man had learnt to control his ability, in addition to helping Brett accept his own darker calling. This place held memories, dead and decaying with the structure its self.

In the cellar of the barn, Kristo strode to the center of the empty space, opening the huge, swinging doors to the storm cellar, and jumping inside. Robin caught her breath, having not heard his feet hit the ground, but, within a moment, a light flickered on down there. The others went down, following Kristo, but taking the stairs.

Robin glanced to Amon; her partner shrugged and followed, into the dark.

"What's the matter, Little Bird?" Markus's sickeningly suggestive voice crooned in the girl's ear. "Afraid."

The girl shook her head. "Never."

"Well, alright, then." Markus took the first step down, turning to extend a hand to the fire starter in a mock of politeness. "Shall we?"

Robin took a deep breath and stepped into the shadows.

xxxx

They had finally released the house.

Karasuma stalked in, feeling so utterly lost, despite the fact that it had only been a few weeks, maybe a month or two at most since the empath last saw the home of Kristo and those witches. Still, it was the lingering memories of Robin and Amon that haunted her. The empath could still see Robin's smiling face, standing by the counter with Nycole and Kathain, laughing at some joke. She could recall every detail to those images of the pair playing in the stream behind the house.

Solomon had picked over the house with an even finer tooth comb than at Nocturne. They had turned the place upside down… literally, it seemed, judging by the mess. But Karasuma wasn't looking for clues exactly. At least, not the kind that Solomon would have been interested in.

She ran her fingers over the counter, feeling the life of the house, the good times spent around it, even as fugitives. Miho smiled absently. Robin was definitely one of the people who had shared in such times, enjoying the fun and games when there was any. Strangely, such feelings of home comforted the woman. At least Miho could trust that those witches cared about Robin, and that they would take care of the girl.

"Happy memories?" Doujima asked.

Karasuma nodded. "Many."

"That's odd," the other woman mused.

The empath shook her head. "No, not really." Doujima raised an eyebrow, but Miho went on, feeling the life and energy of the house unfold, welcoming her in return. "They were fugitives, yes, but they were family."

"Oh…"

Miho paused. There was a pen lying on the counter. She picked it up, feeling the smooth edges of the black Pilot pen. A Solomon agent had used that writing tool. He had taken it from one of the rooms and carelessly left it lying on the counter.

_Book._

Karasuma blinked, dropping the pen.

"Something wrong?" Doujima inquired.

Miho shook her head again, and took up the implement a second time. The memories bloomed before the empath's own eyes, without the need to scry. This house, this pen, it all wanted her to know something, something important. The woman breathed deep and let her mental guards down, allowing the images to flow into her like a river.

_Book of secrets._

Miho licked her lips.

_Secrets of the Thirteen._

There was most definitely something there. An image. An old, leather bound book. It rested in the pale hands of a young woman, slender and delicate, with red hair and sparkling blue eyes. A witch. Kathain.

_Secrets of the Oracles._

"We have to find that book."

xxxx

_The day was warm and hot, fittingly so for the weather. The sun shone, mockingly in the sky, almost macabre and evil, glaring upon the body._

_Kathain trembled. "I don't want to see anymore of this."_

_But she had to. _

_The scene reset, rewinding before her very eyes. The figure before her rose, rewinding the fall. The bullets tore from his body, screaming backwards towards the pistols from which they originated. The blood rushed back, into the man's body. The breath ran into his lungs again. And his eyes? They softened suddenly, the shock melting away, replaced by cool comfort._

_It was a gas station. A Chevron. If Kathain couldn't stop the vision from coming, she would learn everything about it she could._

_Time started again, moving forward at a normal pace._

_He was coming out from the convenience store, a smile on his face and something in his hands. Brett was at the car, his white Civic. The fire elemental said something, something lost to time its self. The other man tossed a pack of cigarettes at him. _

_And, then, those sounds came again._

_Kathain clamped her hands over her ears, blocking out the terrible sounds of gunshots._

_But she could not look away._

_The precognitive watched in horror as it happened all over again. She was powerless to stop it, powerless to do anything. Instead, all Kathain could do was stare in emotional agony and torment as the bullets flew again, tearing through the air, through sound its self, towards the man before her._

"_Oh…. Shit."_

_Last words of a man doomed to die._

_Kathain cried as the man fell. _

"_GEOFF!"_

xxxx

Me mean


	5. Excuses, excuses

**TOUCHING GOD**

H'ok. So, here's the modem. :holds up drawing of modem: It'd be a nice modem, if it actually worked. But… it doesn't.

:lights paper on fire:

So, it sucks to be in my house right now.

:burns self on burning paper:

:drops paper:

So… yeah. What this means is I keep writing more, but can't post.

Um…. I bet you're wondering how I'm posting this right now? I'm actually at class, during break for Art Direction. All my files are on the other computer… at the house. I'll see if I can post from a friend's house later.

Hopefully, internet will be fixed soon.

CYREN


	6. Goodnight, Irene

TOUCHING GOD 

Television was always to blame for such things.

Television was the source of violence in the world, encouraging people to do damage and harm to one another. Movies, video games, and popular shows taught people to bear arms, stockpile weapons, and commit a whole slew of other mistakes in the name of brave notions. Massive storehouses were reported to exist of guns, bombs, and knives. It was said that the children who brought guns and other weapons to school had been influenced by the bloodthirsty images portrayed in movies and all around them. It was whispered that who stores of weapons were hidden across America by the same types of insane persons such as those of Waco.

But, then again, these were all rumors.

Robin had often heard arguments proposing such a notion; the girl had thought it to be nothing more than mindless drivel. But, there, in the dark, cramped, stifling cellar of the barn, Robin had to reconsider such thought process.

The barn shouldn't exist by such logic. At least, the cellar shouldn't have. Wall upon wall was lined with locked cabinets, full of neatly polished and racked guns, while boxes upon boxes of ammunition had been placed below in a tidy order. The metal of each of the weapons gleamed as fresh, despite a think layer of dust on everything else. While the barn rotted away above them, the cellar had been kept in excellent shape, obviously dusted and tended to daily. Someone oiled and checked them regularly.

"I told you I'd get everything done," Markus piped up.

Kristo nodded, not really regarding the man. In truth, the swordsman hadn't been eager to leave all those weapons in the hands of Markus. Yet, with such a quick retreat to Japan, there hadn't been any other option. All of Kristo's private collection had to fall to Markus, to be kept in working order and ready at a moment's notice.

So many memories… Kristo had almost forgotten how many.

It had been years since some of these firearms had seen service. Actually, some had seen action just the year or two before, right before they left. Were he any other person, Kristo would have blushed at the thoughts, but the swordsman wasn't one for regret or second guessing any of his decisions. Best to stay alive in the present than to live only in the past, in the memories of those who would have to pick up your sorry carcass.

Markus placed a key in Kristo's hands, the same key that had been left with him. "They've been waiting for you."

Markus always seemed to have the right words… or the most wrong words humanly possible. It seemed like some weird thing about the man. He had such a grace and knowledge of everything. When Markus put his mind to it, the man could find exactly what someone was thinking and know precisely how to respond, how to get what he wanted out of it. Markus was cunning like that.

Kristo made a mental note to be careful around Markus this time around.

"I bet you missed them," Markus sang, leaning more weight on the older nature to Kristo.

The shadow walker didn't waste any time dignifying Markus with any comment in response to that. He knew better than to feed the other man's ego and yearning to see a rise in anyone, from anything. Kristo knew Markus drew energy and pleasure from that.

The male witch glanced about, finding everything he'd requested. Guns. Bombs. Ammunition. Holsters. Swords. Throwing knives. Primer cord, His pistols, chrome and gleaming, engraved with those words in flowing script. Kristo allowed his fingers to trail over the thin curls of etching, seeming to glow with the inner fire of the wielder himself. Kristo smiled absently, checking each of the weapons in turn.

Robin glanced down each barrel, reaching out the quotations. On the left, read "When anger arises, think of the consequences." The girl recognized the words of Confucius. The other gun was actually marked in French. Robin didn't know it.

"What does that one say?" She inquired.

Kristo shrugged. "'Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.' It's Voltaire."

Robin nodded slowly. "What do we do, now?"

"Now?" Kristo raised an eyebrow. "Now, we hire a friend."

xxxx

"You know that was a very foolish thing to do, Kathain?"

She didn't care. In truth, if Kathain had been given the opportunity to make a repeat offense, the girl would have. Instead, this time, the girl would have gone back to her apartment, shattered a glass, and eaten the shards one at a time. The precognitive wondered what broken glass would taste like exactly, mingled with the coppery metallic blood of her mouth, throat, and stomach.

No, this time, they were smart. Zaizen had ordered her taken to a small, padded cell. She had been fitted with a straight jacket over those tightly bandaged wrists of hers. This was most likely simply to keep the girl from reopening the stitches that held together the gashes of her sins against her own body.

"You knew precisely what you were doing…"

Zaizen. He spoke to her with a softly chiding tone, as if scolding his own daughter. And, yet, there seemed to be a darkly menacing nature to his words. Kathain didn't exactly like the way the man spoke to her, but the precognitive spoke not a word against him. In fact, the girl barely flinched, despite how close Zaizen peered into her face.

Kathain felt the heat of his breath on her cheek. "You broke our deal."

"No… I didn't…. I made my own deal with Death," the girl whispered in a ghostly voice; Kathain laughed, a sort of wracked cackle, really. "He made me a better offer."

"That's not funny, and you know it," Zaizen snarled, rather annoyed.

Kathain jerked back, deeper into her corner. The corner was safe. It had to be. Her back was to the wall, so no one could come from behind. Only in front. Corners were safe. They forced the girl to focus only on those who dared come directly before her. It gave the girl the illusion of control. And illusions of reality were always better than the dark truth. In this case, far better than the realization that the precognitive was quite literally trapped, wedged between a rock and a hard place, or, in this case, a wall and Zaizen.

Long ago, Kathain had worked at a pet store. A sad bird came her way while working there. A terrified creature, afraid of all humans. When confronted, the ringneck parakeet would fly into a fit and crouch in the corner, shivering slightly, wavering to and fro. At first. the girl hadn't understood the bird. Now, Kathain WAS that bird, kept as someone's amusing, someone's pet.

"You broke our little contract."

Zaizen cracked out his neck. Kathain fought the urge to giggle slightly at the action, like something from a bad James Bond film. Zaizen seemed to be the epitome of the big, burly bodyguard, trying to threaten his quarry by intimidation alone.

The man smiled devilishly at her. "You know, this gives me every right to go after your little friends, starting with Robin and Amon?" He grinned. "Think of the things we could do to them?"

The mental image of the Thirteen in peril flashed through the girl's mind.

Kathain blinked sadly, letting her gaze drift to the tile floor. "I won't do it again… I promise."

"No, no more promises," Zaizen growled, stepping back and away.

"No!" Kathain cried the word, a shriek of emotional agony, really. She hurtled her body at Zaizen, at his feet. "Please! I give you my word." She sobbed now, feeling the searing heat of her own tears streaking down her cheeks. "Please!" She collapsed down on the floor, a sad, pitiful excuse for an Oracle. "Please… just don't…. don't hurt them." Kathain didn't know what else to say, how else to even attempt to beg Zaizen. "Please… don't hurt my friends."

They were all the girl had in the world, even if Kathain had abandoned them.

"No promises from you." He gave a curt nod.

Kathain whimpered, "Please. I'll never disobey ever again…"

"I have no doubts in my mind of that…."

xxxx

They were driving again, following Kristo this time.

The cars slipped through the light rain, gliding through rush hour traffic and between the buildings. Roswell Road took them down through the artsy district of Buckhead, until the road eventually merged together with Peachtree Street. Down South, the street carried them, guided them towards the city, the sprawling metropolis and towering buildings. Robin gazed up balefully at the Bank of America Tower as it pierced the night.

They followed Brett as he led, riding with Kristo in the white Civic. The two had strayed together as they armed, speaking in hushed whispers and what sounded like ancient tongues. Robin didn't like that; she liked it even less when everyone backed away, allowing the two Warriors plenty of berth.

Instead, Robin rode with Bear and Raven in the Sentra. Kathain's car. Every inch of it felt like the aging car belonged to the precognitive. From the weathered seats to the maroon tassel dangling on the rear view mirror. There were even old magazines and books scattered in the floorboards of the backseat. Most of them were horse and art magazines, but, here and there, buried among the clutter, was a book or two. Robin picked one up, carefully, gently, as if the thing were a venomous snake, snapping and biting at her.

Machiacelli's "The Prince." The Dalai Lama. "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying."

"Interesting…"

Raven gave a quick glance over his shoulder. "Yeah. Kathain always did have weird taste in books."

"We're here."

Robin dropped the book, catching her breath.

"You have got to be joking."

xxxx

"Zaizen!"

Kathain was scared now, very scared.

He had her, right where he wanted her. Zaizen could have done anything to her. He stalked about the girl, taunting her with his presence, with that macabre smile that said "I could kill you where you stand."

He stroked her hair; if Kathain could have, she would have struck him. "Don't touch me."

"Oh, you're mad now," Zaizen toyed with her. "But, soon, you'll come to see it my way. Soon, you won't fight me anymore."

"You can't do this…" Kathain growled between clenched teeth.

"Oh, but I can."

xxxx

I tired.


	7. Coming Home

TOUCHING GOD 

"Book, book…. Who's got the book…"

Doujima practically sang the words as the blonde scoured what remained of Kristo's house in the countryside. Somewhere, in the piles and piles of scattered papers, books, magazines, supplies, and blankets, was a small, brown, leatherbound book. Karasuma had seen it, and, so, it had to be there. And there had to be some reason that the empath needed that book so desperately.

Doujima pursed her lips into a mild scowl. "Why exactly do you need this book?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Miho breathed softly, absently.

The blonde threw her arms up. "Then WHY exactly are we hunting for it?"

"I don't know."

xxxx

"So, who wrote this joke?"

Amon didn't answer his former partner as both he and Robin gazed up in awe at the strange sight before them. It was a tall building, painted black all about the exterior. Loud music throbbed from the inside, making the entire structure seem alive with a massive, slamming bass beat, the heartbeat of the club. But, that wasn't what started Robin or Amon. It was the scrawled, purple, neon lighting was the name, The Masquerade. The name wasn't that surprising, but the strange, mechanical gargoyle peering over the "M" remained all too familiar in style and design.

Robin folded her arms across her chest. "You knew we were coming here, Raven?"

"Yup," the runemal replied as the others piled out of the cars, milling about and gathering along the busy Ponce de Leon Avenue.

She darted a mildly annoyed look towards Raven. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"You didn't ask."

Robin shook her head, but Amon fought to control his own smile. Yet the Craft user actually caught the quick flash of humor found in Amon. It had been so very long since he had felt anything. And, yet, in that group, the man found it so relaxing. It felt… freeing to be among them, as if Amon could be exactly who he was and exactly who he was meant to be with no worries.

And, yet, Amon had become the very thing he hated.

A witch.

No. Robin corrected herself. Amon had become one of the Thirteen. The man had ascended from hunter to Warrior, chosen among the chosen. Amon had been born anew, casting off his former life and transforming into something entirely different than both man and witch combined. Robin had seen his wings.

The girl shuddered visibly; Brett furrowed his eyebrows as he approached. "Are you alright, Robin?"

"Yes…" the girl murmured.

But, inside, she wasn't.

xxxx

The rooms felt so vacant and empty.

Miho could still hear the echoes of laughter in the back of her mind. At one point, right after that little band of refugees had fled to Japan, the house had been a home to them, a place where they could just be. The entire group found the place to be relaxing, refreshing. There, they could just calm down and be themselves.

And, now, they were devoid.

Karasuma almost wished they hadn't left. Their absence left an unnatural taint upon the house, dark and sickly. It was if when the witches fled, they had taken every bit of life from the house with them, back to America. The empath could actually almost see them still there, in the house, in shadow images. And every image of them seemed to be so happy and joyous, with only a mild hint of despair lurking beneath the positive exterior.

This was a house of juxtaposition.

On the one hand, there was this happy, shiny surface, filled with happy, shiny people. There was the façade, and, yet, some sliver of truth to it. They were happy, when they were together, all of them, in that house.

But, that was just one facet to the many sided puzzle that was that particular band of witches. Miho had never quite seen anything life them, and the woman doubted she would ever again. They had such courage, such fire and passion. They knew exactly who they were and what they needed to accomplish with life. Or, so, it seemed. They were a mystery, an enigma onto themselves. They were perfect sorrow and perfect love given feet and a will to walk the Earth.

Karasuma moved on from the living room, into a side room. The laundry room. There, piles of laundry remaining to be done lay heaped on the floor. Miho smirked, wondering precisely which pieces of unmentionables belonged to whom. Somehow, the empath couldn't quite picture the Invader Zim boxers belonging to Amon, or any of the other men for that matter. Miho absently prayed they weren't Sakaki's either!

Absently, Miho began to pile the clothes into the washing machine.

"What are you doing?" Doujima asked breathlessly from the doorframe.

Karasuma shook her head. "I don't know." The empath smiled to herself softly. "I just thought they would appreciate clean clothes when they came home."

If they would ever return to the far flung islands of Japan. In truth, Miho hadn't any idea where the band had run off to, carting Robin, Sakaki, and Amon with them. They could have been anywhere, with anyone, doing anything. There were just too many questions, too many variables to the equation.

"That's if they're still alive," Doujima sniffed.

Karasuma shrugged. "Michael just spoke with Amon recently. Something about decoding a bunch of files." She grabbed another bunch of clothes to shove into the washer. "And you know Amon. He wouldn't let them do anything too terribly risky."

"How improper."

Karasuma raised an eyebrow, but when on with the simple, mindless task. It was most impolite of the woman to be pawed through their dirty linens, particularly, their whites, but Miho had just felt the urge. She tried to finish without a second thought, but a strange texture caught her fingertips. It was smooth, warm, and welcoming. Leather.

"The book…."

xxxx

She hated him.

Oh god, she hated him.

She hated him with every breath of the world, with the passion of a thousand burning suns, with, with…. With every fiber of her being…. Her being?

She was loosing herself.

The world fell away, lost in a sea of confusion, trickling away with every last shred of her being and her consciousness. They took the last remnants of her sanity. And her emotions. The girl struggled to hold tight to her emotions, to feel them again, to remember what it felt life to feel. Utterly redundant, it seemed, but the girl had to remember, hold herself together.

But…. Her name….

It remained.

No.

No, that was gone, too.

NO!

She had to fight it, fight the will to submit. The girl had to summon every last bit of her strength to remember who she was, what she was. The girl had to keep it together, to recall her name and know what she needed to do. She already knew one thing; the girl hated HIM.

…. Who was he again?

The girl blinked, looking up into those eyes of his.

She was supposed to feel something about him.

That is to say, if she would feel anything ever again.

"Do you know who you are?"

No, she couldn't.

xxxx

They stalked in, entering The Masquerade like wolves on the prowl. They moved together, a dark wave passing through the great doors to what has once been a booming textile factory. The smell of age, of decades of sweat, and the lingering must of long rotten cotton hung on the air, drifting between the ancient, wood timbers that held the former factory together.

Robin immediately hated the place.

Sakaki, on the other hand, felt immediately at home. He had never been to The Masquerade, but the former hunter had spent so long among the witches before Robin and Amon showed up. Nocturne had become like a home to Sakaki, a safe haven, away from the STN and the prying eyes of Miho Karasuma and Doujima. It was the only place Sakaki had felt safe to just be himself after the man awoke to his Craft. And The Masquerade seemed to be perfectly modeled after Nocturne. As they entered, towering doors to the right led into Heaven, a 21 and up bar. Crumbling, decaying stairs led up, into the main part of the club. Sakaki following, passing by the red lit Hell and the bands playing for the quieter, somber atmosphere of Purgatory, along with the group.

Robin folded her arms across her chest. "Why is Nocturne in Atlanta?"

"Well…" Nycole scratched the back of her head, searching for a good way to put it.

Geoff smirked. "We're not really as creative as we seemed like?"

It was a better answer; it was the truth.

At any other time, even Kristo would probably have chuckled at the thought. In truth, after moving to Japan, it took a long time for them to finally get the club open. And, when did they, the witches modeled it after The Masquerade. A little slice of home; at least, the witches found it to be so.

But, no, at that moment, Kristo focused in on one person along.

Behind the bar, the tender gave the group a slight nod. He was a tall, lanky fellow, with long, straight hair. Robin sniffed at just home many men in the group didn't seem to quite understand what scissors were for. But this one, with the almost anemically pale skin, and huge, green eyes, his hair seemed a tad bit neatly. Perhaps it was how thing the hair was, or the fact that this man braided it back. And he recognized them.

Kristo took a seat before him. "Evening."

"Evening," the tender sounded curt, forcing the reply. "What can I get you?"

"How about the fastest shot in all of Georgia- well, second fastest." The offer lay on the table, bare and naked, for all to see.

The tender leaned close. "I don't do that anymore."

"You have to, Jonas. Kathain needs you."

The bartender's face fell. Sorrow flashed behind his eyes, mingled with surprise and fear. Terror, perhaps. It was as if this Jonas had been expecting this day to come, but dreaded it the entire time. Jonas had known but never prepared for it.

"Give me five."

xxxx

So, there you have it. The secret's out. Nocturne is an homage to Atlanta's The Masquerade. Sorrow. I had to do it. But, I also embellished the Masquerade just a smidge. It's actually a fun club to go to, on the right night. Too bad our guys just can't seem to pick the right night to do anything.


	8. Sleep

TOUCHING GOD 

Clubs have such life, such vibrance and brilliance. They so often seem to be beacons of life and energy, heralds of humanity and social graces. Each individual one remains a twinkling light in the vastness of the universe and time.

The Masquerade, for it's decrepit state was just one such place.

Sitting at the bar of Purgatory, Nycole never felt so at home. Before Nocturne, there had been The Masquerade. Before Japan, there had been Atlanta, the bustling, sprawling metropolis. Gem of the South. Before anything, there had been this place, the inspiration for what would become Nocturne.

Robin felt so utterly strange and lost. On the one hand, this place remained so terribly familiar. This room, in particular. Huge rafters spanned overhead, dust covered and webbed from years. In the upper portions of the hall, some sort of weird machinery stood, long dead and stopped. Ages ago, they ran for days on end. Now, the entire place stood still, even rather empty for a bar.

She sat next to Nycole impatiently. There was something comforting about being close to the empath, rather like being with Karasuma again. And, yet, Robin felt completely and utterly disgusted at her budding dependency.

As if to prove the point of defiance, Robin strode off, but Brett stopped her. "Where are you going?"

"No where, really."

"Don't wander off too far," he crooned at her in a fatherly voice.

Robin rolled her eyes and stalked off, pushing past Raven and Bear, striding out the door with a swagger in her step. Pride swelled within her momentarily as the teenager left them to their own misery for a moment, heading towards the rich, red lights of Hell. That joy became momentary and fleeting when a hand caught her wrist.

Amon's deep and husky voice thundered in her ears, booming even over the loud, industrial music pounding away in the other room. "Robin."

"I am not your pet," she growled.

It was the first stroke of anger or annoyance Amon had ever seen in the girl, but he refused to let loose her wrist. "What were you off to do?"

"I don't know…"

Amon let her hand slide from his hold, allowing her to step away. But, in truth, the man didn't really have anything to say to her. There was nothing. No words. No speeches of truth or responsibility. No. Amon could say not a damn thing to Robin, and he knew it. They had abandoned their lives and previous roles when the pair fled Japan along with these strange witches.

And, so, he followed her into Hell.

xxxx

Jonas.

God, they hadn't seen him in years. Okay, well a year or two. They left Jonas behind, keeping an ear to the ground, listening out for anything involving the Thirteen. Or, really, Jonas let them leave without him.

In truth, Jonas wouldn't leave. He couldn't. No. This world, this life, it was his and his alone. Jonas had oft refused to allow his previous involvements with this group rule his life and his decisions. Jonas was his own man, his own master. His law bound him, and no one else. No man could control him. And Fate most certainly could not hold Jonas by her fickle laws.

No, Jonas refused to follow his true calling.

And now?

Well, things had changed.

Jonas realized that the very moment they came into the club, stalking about on an uneasy wind. No. Actually, Jonas had known before that, when there seemed to be a charge to the air, electric and crackling. Static popped in odd ways. It was the sort of energy that only swelled when the Thirteen were about.

Jonas had known something had changed.

He saw it in their eyes. A sadness hungered at them, eating away at many of them. Especially Nycole. The empath usually remained so happy and energetic. But, now, the girl seemed sullen and listless. And no wonder. Kathain was not at her side as she always was. It was a crime for them to be apart. Jonas sighed as he rifled through his locker, changing his shirt. It was a sin. They were Oracles, the both of them. They should never have been apart once their scattered souls were found. And the Oracles were always meant to be among the Thirteen.

Oracles.

Years ago, the blonde had found it to be funny. The thought of it was utterly ridiculous. Oracles shouldn't exist. And, yet, they did. Funny.

Jonas closed his locker, and the door to his old life.

"Back in the game for me."

'Yes….'

A voice sang in his mind, low and rich with bass tones.

How sad it was. The Thirteen were gathering again, and gathering in Atlanta, around him. Jonas. They clawed at his soul and mind, dragging him back into this whole mess.

"Damn end of the world."

xxxx

Amon and Robin had wandered away again.

Nycole sighed heavily. This routine of theirs were getting old. Day after day, they seemed to silently bicker and squabble, arguing mildly with one another, in their own, silent way. Nycole slid off her bar stool, swearing softly as the girl slunk off, towards Hell and towards the pair of miscreants.

"Damned Hunters."

The empath smoothed her hair, recalling she was still in a goth club, and a former home to herself and the other witches.

And, then, she stopped dead in her tracks.

xxxx

_Whispers of a faceless god; rumors of a seething death._

The world had grown clear and fresh.

She sat up, stretching each and every single muscle in their own turn, They had grown atrophied and tired, stiff and tight. It wasn't disconcerting. Just a mere fact. She had been idle and still for too long. It could have been a costly mistake in the long run.

She surveyed her surroundings, making quick mental notes. _'Room. Bare walls. Tile floor. 10x10". One door.'_

There was a man. The girl studied him keenly, taking mental stock of him and all of his features. She searched for any emotion, any motivation or desires. The girl looked over his form and structure, seeking out any sort of advantage that could be used against her. At the same time, the girl hunted for any weakness that could benefit her in the event of a surprise fight.

_A man called out to her, crying a name lost to the wind._

Her name.

The girl looked down at her pale hands. The word, that simple thing, was gone. It felt mildly strange not to be afraid. The girl knew she should have worried, been utterly terrified that she knew not who she was. And, yet, for how alien a sensation, it did not truly bother the girl. She merely filed it away as a part of her mental notations.

_Screams in the night._

There was something lingering behind her eyes. She closed them, momentarily taking her gaze from the man before her. The girl instinctively allowed the visions to come. Somehow, for how strange that was, the girl just allowed them to flow into her, like a river, or the tide rising to meet the beach. The girl closed her eyes and breathed deeply, drawing the visions into herself.

His blades, slashing out towards her, cutting through the night and black its self. Void around her, nothing more. A man, in the dark, striking out at her. He seemed to falter. She could use that. Blood on the night.

The vision subsided, leaving her alone.

"Do you know who you are?"

The girl looked, glaring almost defiantly as she responded, but feeling nothing, really. "No."

"Do you know who you are?"

The girl shook her head. "No."

Her responses where flat, monosyllabic. He should have taken that as a bad sign. But, at that moment, there didn't seem to be any harm. She wasn't angry, enraged, or embittered. She just… was.

"Do you know your name?" He seemed to have read her earlier thoughts.

The girl cocked her head to one side, as if contemplating the question. "No."

"Would you like to?"

He was teasing her. She didn't like this particularly. But, it didn't really bother her at all. It was merely an annoyance, a stumbling block in the road.

"It would be helpful."

He gazed at her, his eyes sharp with devious glee, it seemed. "Leanna."

The girl didn't believe him. There was something to the tone of voice that betrayed his supposed 'honesty,' He lied to her, terribly. This man hid something from her, concealing some dark and terrible thing. Perhaps there was something wrong with her name, something wrong with her. May haps she had done something awful. Or, just maybe, this stranger was attempting to capitalize off of her. There were so many possibilities to be entertained, and just not enough time in the world to do so.

Unfortunately, the girl had not the time. She would just have to trust him, for now.

"A strong name."

He nodded. "For a strong woman."

She looked to her hands, pale and fragile seemed. There was no mirror to the room, and, so the forgetful creature just had to use her own features, what she could see, to guess at an age. Those hands looked so tiny and delicate. She seemed more like a child, of teenage years, than a true woman.

"Do you know what you are?"

She gave a shrug. "I seem to be some sort of seer."

That didn't feel wrong or unusual. In fact, it just felt rather… sound.

""Leanna, you are to kill."

That didn't seem too odd.

She gave a mild nod of acknowledgement. "Who?"

"Witches."

XXXX

Evening chaps. Might not have another round for a couple of days until I get a chance to write. Tomorrow starts GARF. And the day after, I have to work.


	9. Band of Lies

TOUCHING GOD "Hey, hey, I, I 

_Don't consider myself to be perfect…"_

Oh, but he was. Actually, but they were. Both of them.

Nycole blinked, rubbing her eyes in disbelief. It was a band. But, it was more than that. It was a second cluster in the universe. A shining, bright star in a realm off nothing more than mere shadows.

Resplendent creatures.

"_But I, I,_

_Don't think I can be suited for this role…"_

Oh, but they were.

Both of them.

They were a singer and a bassist. The singer stood tall and proud, almost cockily so as he strode about the stage, peering over the crowd that had gathered in The Masquerade's Hell. His hair was tied back in a neatly slicked pony tail. And, yet, it somehow didn't surprise Nycole that this man kept his hair long, in rich, thick curls. The singer's hair was black, seeming to mold into the deep, ebony makeup smeared across the top half of his face. Chocolate brown eyes peered out from beneath that dark mess of sweat and greasepaint.

And the bassist? Strangely, his head had been shorn clear of hair. His eyes gazed out, under shining, rounded, chrome glasses, hidden from the world. This man seemed lost in the music, lost to the very notes he strummed out. His black coat had been splattered with some sort of white powder. And, yet, it seemed to go.

They were completely suited for this role, and Nycole knew it.

"_But hey, hey, I, I,_

_Don't want to be burdened by you…"_

Nycole held her breath. The singer had thrown out a hand, into the air, seemingly right at her. The gesture cut through the air like a dart straight threw her, a direct blow. Her body froze, tensing suddenly as the girl empath daren't move a muscle. Fortunately, the singer didn't seem to notice; he gaze dropped away slyly.

The pair seemed to hold a faint strangeness. It was as if time and space bent around them. Their actions seemed sinuous and liquid, flowing through energy and matter its self. Light spun in and around them, but only to her trained eyes. Their glory came from within and from the universe's own, unique blessings. Oh, yes, for these men were both cursed and blessed at the same time, just as Brett was, just as Amon was. They appeared in the same, veiled periphery of life as the others did, these odd performers.

This was Nycole's gift, the gift of an Oracle. Her very essence remained forever encompassed in one, simple task. Her every fiber trained on that one, specific quest to life. The empath had but one purpose, to locate and identify other… unique individuals.

"Nycole!"

"_Hey, hey, you, you,_

_Don't write me off…."_

Nycole drew in a deep breath, swallowing hard.

For right now, they were innocent, these two musicians. They had nothing to do with anything that had happened to the Thirteen. They knew nothing of the Thirteen. Hell, Nycole was even aware of that fact that this pair remained completely oblivious to their own heritage and fate, much as Amon had. Thinking back, for how blood strained Amon's hands had been, even that man had been innocent, unaware of the darkness building around him.

"_Don't follow me. You won't like where you'll be."_

'_If only you knew the truth about that,'_ Nycole thought to herself with a smug grin.

"Nycole!"

"_Don't look to me. You won't life what you'll see."_

Again, the empath shuddered with delicious sadism, feeling those dark thoughts rising within herself, growing deeper and seething in her heart. These boys were special compared to everyone else, and it was her place to tell them.

"Nycole!" Brett's voice, shouting over the throbbing industrial.

Soon, these boys would know the truth, and, soon, they would become men.

Brett grabbed her sharply. "Nycole, what in the hell where you thinking, wandering off like that?"

"Nothing…"

But Brett knew it was a lie. He just knew better than to press the subject.

"We're leaving. Now."

Nycole spared a glance over her shoulder as Brett hauled her away from the stage and back towards Purgatory. The singer seemed to be staring her down as she left, but Nycole knew he couldn't really see her for what she truly was. That man couldn't see the girl's true nature. For that, she was thankful.

"Soon…."

xxxx

Miho Karasuma had believed in witches since she was a little girl. Her heart had leapt with keen interest and sharp fascination at the fabrications her parents shared at bedtime. Every utterance of one, simple statement sent thrills racing through Miho's younger self.

"Once upon a time."

From there, anything could happen. A whole world of possibilities spanned before the child as her parents wove grandiose yarns of princesses and princes, tales of knights and their ladies, or swordplay and sorcery. Miho could have been anyone at anytime and any place. She could instantly be whisked away by her own imagination to some far off time and place, where wizards lived alongside normal men, and dragons swooped through the clouds above.

The urge had continued throughout her life. The woman could devour books at an explosive rate, seemingly finishing a tale before the spine could even be barely broken. And, yet, for the first time ever, Miho found herself hesitant.

Doujima even stepped back, away from the empath as she brought the book into the living room. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Secrets of the Thirteen…" Miho replied as she sat by the counter, holding the book gingerly.

Her younger, blonde companion rubbed her arms uneasily. "Do you think we should read it? I mean, it's not like it's ours." Doujima seemed to be attempting to rationalize just avoiding the entire problem. "It's not like it's any of our business."

But it was too late; Miho had already cracked the book open.

xxxx

_Amon. Thirteen. Warrior. _

_And, so, they shall gather. Stage is set. _

_I… will be lost to the enemy. And this shall force certain pieces into place. _

_I will not return._

_But, in the end, Kristo's blood shall be on my hands. _

_It will be all my fault._

_And there is nothing anyone can do to stop this._

_Are you happy, Miss Miho Karasuma?_

_Isn't this precisely what you wanted to read?_

xxxx

Miho slammed the book shut.

"She knew…."

Somehow, damn her, Kathain had known the whole time. The precognitive had seen. Karasuma flipping through the pages of the book, finding that one spot and reading ahead. The girl wrote that page specifically for Miho, especially for that one moment in time and space.

Kathain even had the audacity to call Miho's honor into question.

"What is it?" Doujima asked softly, afraid of the answer.

"I need to speak with Amon, now."

xxxx

Such a strange pilgrimage.

Markus had seen them off that morning as they left Atlanta. His eyes had followed the line of cars, that odd little caravan as they slipped away from the farmhouse, and into the trees. They were armed, and they were ready.

And Markus?

He would be waiting for them.

All Markus needed was but a little more time.

xxxx

The sun mocked them.

It hung in the sky, swollen and full of life giving light. Those rays splashed down upon everything, leaving little dark places to hide. And, yet, they traveled on.

Robin just gazed out. They were quiet, too quiet. The Craft user didn't like it. She especially didn't like the fact that Kristo actually slumbered beside her as they drove. The man hardly seemed to really sleep deeply, to truly rest. Yet, there he sat, his head tilted to one side, his body supine and almost limp. The man was saving his strength and preparing, readying himself for whatever battle lay ahead.

And, yet, his tonto rested on the chair just beneath his fingers.

Robin leaned forward, closer to Amon, feeling the head of his body under the harsh sun. "Amon, why are we doing this?"

"I have to."

The girl flinched. Not "we." Not "you and I." No. HE had to. It was as if she didn't even exist to him anymore. It was as if Robin had never existed. It seemed that only these Thirteen existed within Amon's world. The Thirteen, and the Oracles.

It was all their fault.

Robin balled her fist tightly. "How long are you going to keep me in the dark?"

Brett raised an eyebrow as he continued to drive. The fire elemental had known this would happen, in it's own time. Kathain had all but told him so. At one point, the precognitive had seen fit to share with him every detail to life, the universe, and everything. And, at one point, Brett had seen fit to listen with open ears. He knew all of this would come to pass. The elemental had just waited for it to come.

"You really want to be in the light?" Kristo asked without even cracking open an eye.

The girl bit her lip. "I'd like to know something, anything. You can't keep dragging me blindly into this."

"Then, open your eyes."

Robin sat back, rather unpleased with the world and the others at that moment. She would better deal with them later. But, for right then, perhaps the best idea was to sit tight and just say her energy for the upcoming battle.

'_We'll see.'_

But there was plenty of road ahead, and miles to ponder things out.

xxxx

Me be tired. Long day at work. Long day at festival. But, figured you'd like an update soon.


	10. Shadow Cat

TOUCHING GOD 

Washington.

Kristo had been to D.C. once or twice. He had been dragged through the daylight from monument to monument by family, Some of it had been interesting, but, for the most part, Kristo found himself getting into trouble by wandering off. He had never really been one to just stand about and gawk at things; the shadow walker remained a creature of action his whole life. The shouts of his mother, drying out in horror as the boyish Kristo scaled the Lincoln monument still echoed in his ears.

With a smirk, the man wondered if he'd ever be allowed back in that hallowed space.

They stalked together, moving as one, cohesive pack. They were wolves, striding over the mall easily, crossing the space with little effort. Even Sakaki fell into place, skulking among the others. Only Robin seemed uneasy with how quickly even Amon fell into step with the group.

Smartly, Kristo ordered they leave the cars on the other side of the river, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Somewhere, deep within the shadow walker lurked the dark and calculating soul of a warrior, a general even, perhaps. No. Robin correctly herself as she studied his stride, low and long, barely audible. In Kristo's chest beat the steady, unwavering heart of an assassin.

Robin glanced up to the moon above, hanging brightly in the sky. Normally, that would have been a good omen. However, this time, the moon had turned a sickly yellow red. It curved, like some terrible, haunting, cracked smile in the sky. It unsettled Robin enough to whisper a 'Hail Mary' or two. The Craft user should have run; she should have fled. Instead, the girl just balled her fist, readying her inner fire.

Suddenly, Kristo stopped.

Robin's heart leapt into her throat, slamming, throbbing there in fear. The shadow walker never stopped, not for anything, But, here, he had paused, along a clump of cherry trees, fragrant and blooming late into the season. The long-haired warrior just stood, waiting, listening. He cocked his head to one side, allowing every miniscule sound of the night to pour into him, through him. Kristo welcomed the night and shadow around him, reaching out for his inner gift.

Everyone else immediately steeled themselves.

Something was wrong. Something had to be to stop Kristo and put him on edge like that.

"Amon…" Robin whispered the words.

The shadow walker threw up a hand, silencing the entire group as he continued listening. But the grounds were silent and still, empty of all life, save the witches. Not a sound met any of them. Not a breath disturbed the silence of the night.

Kristo turned a hand to the side, amassing a well of inky shadows beside him. His gifts pulled at the very strings and fibers of the night, calling the darkness around him and accessing his own, deep, inner powers. Robin held her fire in her heart as Kristo's pale hand plunged into that hole in the universe, into the void. She held her breath as he slowly, steadily pulled his katana from the night its self, from a place hidden away from the entire world and from any eyes save Kristo's. The black swirled around the edge of the gleaming, steel blade, curling and embracing the weapon.

The abyss sealed upon its self, dissipating into nothingness.

Brett inched close behind his friend, his own flames ready, licking at his heart and soul, begging to be unleashed. He breathed the words coolly. "What is it?"

"We're not alone."

Brett nodded, squeezing his fist harder. "How many?"

"One."

Nycole reached out, unfurling her mind and unwrapping her consciousness. Her walls came down as her own gifts shot out, scouring the grounds around them. Here, in this spot, shone the bright lights of her friends, her compatriots. They twinkled and glittered as stars among a dark sky. But there was nothing else.

"Kristo, I can't feel anyone else," she hissed.

The swordsman shook his head. "Doesn't mean they're not there."

She shuddered, her blood running cold, freezing solid in her veins. Nycole was an empath, an Oracle. There was no way humanly possibly any living thing could evade her secret sight. Nothing. Nothing on earth. Only Kristo could, but only when he left this plain for the abyss, loosing touch with reality and this dimension. In truth, that was cheating. This creature, whatever it was, wasn't cheating.

"What are they doing?" Brett leaned close, glancing this way and that.

"Not moving." Kristo sounded terse and curt, focusing on whatever subtle clues he saw that the others could not. "Watching us." He paused for a moment. "It's been following us for a while now. I just didn't have the heart to tell you."

Brett closed his eyes slowly. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Kristo was nothing but honest and open, especially with concerns of safety of their little family. Brett had never known Kristo to hide anything from anyone. The man just didn't care about emotions; he cared only for facts and that which HAD to happen. For something to make the shadow walker keep silent for so long, it had to be bad. This couldn't just be some pick-pocket or standard police officer. No, this had to be something far worse.

Brett ran the possibilities through his mind. Soldier of Solomon? No. Kristo would have just turned and killed them. Mugger? Same thing. Cop? No. The swordsman would have just tried to lose him in the park.

Thinking back, crossing the Mall had been a rather unusual change of direction. The witches had just followed Kristo without a second thought, trusting the man to lead them straight to wherever Kathain was being held. They put their lives in his hands, and the man took an odd turn. Even their path through the park had been twisting and turning, cutting this way and that through places no tourist was ever meant to see. Kristo had already tried loosing the form.

"Why did you stop now if it's been there the whole damn time?" Geoff snarled under his breath.

"Because it got closer."

In some distant life, Kristo had been an assassin. There was no doubt about it, especially in a moment like that. And, at that moment, every inch of his mind screamed one, terrifying though.

They were being hunted.

Amon instinctively reached for his gas gun, and found the cold, uncomforting metal of one of Kristo's guns. He hefted the weapon, knowing the recoil would shatter through his arm, racing from wrist to shoulder with a harsh slam. It wasn't anything he hadn't already tried before.

"Brett," Kristo barely breathed the word. "Get the others out of here."

And, with that, the man melded with the darkness of the night, feeding his own predatory nature. Brett watched Kristo as he went, knowing the dark satisfaction within his friend, the urge to fight and win.

"Let's go."

xxxx

The night embraced and caressed it's child, Kristo. The man was a creature born of dark of black, of night and void. He was a true artist, in every sense of the word. And the nocturnal abyss always felt so welcoming, so loving, cradling him into the shadows. Upon his will, the hold of the night released him, and Kristo returned to the world, falling lightly to a crouch, his sword drawn, his eyes and ears open. His muscles remained loose and fluid, waiting for whoever and whatever was to come.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Kristo taunted at no one.

A singular leaf crackled in the distance. It was a mild, but fatal error. Kristo now knew exactly where his attacker approached from. The swordsman could now pinpoint the motion of their stalker.

"Hello, my friend," the shadow walker teased again. "Why don't you just come out and play?"

The shadows took form as a shape stepped from them. But, unlike Kristo who hid within the abyss of the dark, this one was a creature of the real world, of this realm. How had Nycole not felt it?

The form stood behind him, ready for battle, obviously. It was tall and lanky, thinly and lithely built. The creature had a birdlike grace and lightness to its construction. It's entire body had been clad in dark wraps and clothes, tightly enclosing the person, but allowing for total freedom in movement. A skull cap, scarf, and dark glasses hid the face of this nocturnal predator from Kristo.

No matter.

He ran a finger down the honed edge of his katana. "Shall we play a game?"

As if to answer, a twin set of throwing knives flew through the air. The first, Kristo easily dodged, as did he the second. But, when a third came, right at the spot Kristo was moving into to avoid the second, the swordsman was almost hit. He brought up the blade of his katana just fast enough to knock the throwing knife away.

Kristo's eyes flash up, seeing that his attacker had retreated back to the darkness.

It took a moment for the shadow walker's keen ears to pick up on the attacker and pinpoint a location. This person was good. He could see Kristo's own movements, knew exactly how the swordsman would react to anything. He could plan ahead for whatever Kristo threw at him. Just to prove it, Kristo kicked up a pebble into the shadows, right at where he knew his opponent stood. A quick rustle of leaves alerted Kristo to the assassin's movement as the creature stepped lightly out of the way of the pebble, knowing exactly where it would hit.

Kristo grinned to himself, reaching a hand behind him and into the abyss, feeling about for a familiar, metal form. "I see. A challenge?"

The person in the shadows refused to answer.

Delicious shivers rolled down Kristo's spine, relishing the very thoughts of what was to come as his hand found purchase on a leather bound, rounded shape. He slowly eased the form from the shadows and into reality. His eyes had adjusted long ago, and the form moved forward, just close enough for Kristo to make out the shape in the dark. Devilish glee flickered like white flames behind the swordsman's eyes.

This death would be quick.

His dagger went flying faster than every before, screaming through the air in an instant, moving with a flash. Kristo grinned, knowing it would hit home.

But it didn't.

The blade stopped.

Somehow, damn him, this attacker had known. The assassin had reached out, grabbing with a sure hand, finding the hilt of the blade and not the sharp edge itself. Kristo's opponent stood cockily as the man tried desperately not to gape. No one, not ever, had been able to stop him there.

The assassin gave a cool nod, hurling the blade back. Kristo reached out, grabbing at air, feeling hot agony scream across his palm, as his skin shrieked with the icy burning of hot steel carving through flesh. His hand still curled around the blade, responding to Kristo's commands as if forced to hold the thing, despite the agony it caused. Kristo stood, his left hand dripping blood as it held the blade end of the weapon. He shook slightly but retained that almost sadistic smile, spread from ear to ear now. Any one else would have cackled madly at that moment, as the assassin just gave a slight bow of his head, but not Kristo.

Instead, Kristo dropped the blood-splattered blade to the ground with a clatter and bowed his head, never taking his dark eyes from his attacker.

"Let's dance."

xxxx

I done.

That's it. End of story. Everyone's dead.

Oh, wait… it's not the end yet? Well… damn.


	11. Dancer in the Dark

TOUCHING GOD 

Games.

Most people liked playing games, but this was not your ordinary game. This wasn't Go Fish or Backgammon. No, this was a game most people chose to avoid. Dangerous. Destructive. And this game had far higher stakes than just pride. Both players put their very life and liberty on the line when they entered this little contest of theirs.

And, yet, both found such glee in it.

Kristo circled to the right, forever keeping his eyes upon his opponent as the other combatant fiercely studied him. They locked in that unusual, piercing gaze for a moment, just the merest of breaths in time. These were true warriors. Kristo held his katana up, giving his due regard to the assassin before him, raising his own guard. He pooled the shadows, dark and infinite, in and around his muscular form.

This would be fun.

Kristo lunged, turning suddenly, and slashing out with his katana, cutting through the night. The man threw his hand with it, his bloodied, left hand. A splash of crimson, well timed and well aimed, splattered over those dark glasses, temporarily blinding his foe as Kristo's blade drew up to the assassin. However, this foe was more cunning and quick than Kristo had quite anticipated, jumping back on nimble feet and wiping the blood harshly from those lenses. The swordsman hadn't figured out the assassin being as good as he, but the man also knew never to make any assumptions.

The assassin danced with the night, with each and every tendril of dark and depths of black. For every slight and subtle attack of Kristo's, driving back at this attacker, the assassin just stepped out of the way, mocking the shadow walker. It was growing more than mildly annoying to the swordsman.

Kristo lunged, darting around the assassin and cutting fiercely, aiming to slice open his opponent's back, aching for a spray of scarlet and the splash of viscera upon the ground. It never came. At least, not to the extent that Kristo desired. The stranger was able to just leap out of the way, but not quite far enough. The swordsman's katana found purchase on fabric and flesh, tearing through the skin of his attacker and spilling crimson blood upon the ground. The assassin hissed slightly, an involuntary exhale, really, but kept moving, without a second thought.

The attacker in black cut around behind Kristo, ignoring the wound on his back as if it had never happened. The shadow walker slipped slightly, easing with the inky black of night, allowing it to carry his body easily and gracefully out of the way of his opponent's flying fists.

This attacker of his was unused to the feeling of a fight, to the swift actions required.

And, yet, he seemed to forever keep Kristo close, forever striking at him.

Kristo was too good. This assassin was good, but Kristo was better. He had been trained by years in the military. No, forget that. He had trained himself. The man had chosen this lifestyle, forever honing his instincts, his fighting skills. Kristo was a warrior, born, bred, and blessed by time and infinity. The shadow walker would always be a warrior, forever walking the earth, forever protecting his family and friends. This one was an imposter, a copy trying to battle the real thing.

Kristo refused to allow whatever skill the assassin had to be held over him.

He opened a pocket of the night with his right hand, dropped his katana into it, as his left hand pulled into the darkness, drawing forth but one of his twin pistols and firing off a quick round. The assassin just made a sprite like dart back, scrambling just out of the way of the bullet at the last moment.

At the same time, this creature gave a slight tumble, grabbing and ripping at his soft, leather-soled shoe, tearing a boot knife from its place. Kristo's opponent landed in but a soft plop, crouching before the shadow walker like a cat. This assassin seemed primed and ready to lunge at Kristo, rip out of his throat, and possibly pause just long enough to toy with the witch's entrails before continuing on.

The shadow walker gave a slight salute with his pistol, bringing the barrel up to gently to tap his forehead in a gesture of mock respect. The witch was growing tired of this game. He no longer cared to entertain this assassin that dared attack him.

The shadows grew alive and very hungry.

xxxx

No.

Not this time.

Robin couldn't take it anymore.

They just kept letting people run off and get into trouble. They just kept sacrificing their own, again and again. These witches weren't people at all if they kept allowing their own kith and kin to fall in battle for some idealized dream of what they had to do.

The girl planted her feet. "Not anymore."

Brett whirled around, his eyes flashing a fierce yellow as soon as he turned. Nycole gave a little gasp. That was a bad sign. A terrible sign. She had only ever seen Brett's eyes meld into that blazing, sulfuric color but once or twice in the entire time she'd known the fire elemental. And each time, it had meant that the fires of his heart burned much hotter than the flames of his gift ever could.

"Keep moving, Robin," he ordered, growling harshly.

The girl stood her ground, giving a tiny shake of her head. "No."

Fire licked up from Brett's palm, racing up his arm and shoulder menacingly. "You don't have any choice, Robin. We have to keep moving."

"Then leave me behind," she snarled back as embers popped and flashed behind her emerald eyes; the air grew hot as her anger rose.

"We don't leave people behind," Brett argued harshly.

Robin's lips pursed into a disapproving frown. "You didn't seem to have any problem with leaving Kristo back there."

"That's different!" Nycole piped up.

Robin shook her head. "How is it any different?"

The fire starter had snapped. She couldn't, she wouldn't take this anymore. Robin was no longer just a little girl, a child in the grand scheme of things. She was the Devil's Child, bearer of the Arcanum of the Craft. Robin refused to allow herself to be bullied, or to be walked across by these strange witches. Not even Amon.

"Robin…" her former partner's voice met her ears, crooning in that deep, bass tone.

She swatted his hand away sharply. "No, Amon. Not this time."

Amon stepped back. He was taken by surprise by Robin's sudden anger, but, when Amon shot out a hand to grab her, the girl turned and ran into the night.

"Robin!"

xxxx

This world is a world crafted of reality and atoms. Light reflects off of atoms to create the true existence, or, at least, the appearance of existence in the eyes of humans. It is human perception that makes thing supposedly real. And that perception is based upon light.

In a world without light, what is true?

Kristo licked his lips with anticipation as the dark came alive, a writhing, crawling, slithering thing. The assassin just stepped back, away from him and into the darkness of the abyss. There was no shock or concern from the shadow walker's opponent as the two slipped out of reality and into the abyss, into Kristo's pocket realm of night and black. The assassin just welcomed it, as if he knew all about this.

This assassin was more than met the eye. Kristo had to take this into account. It was smart, unwavering. This attacker knew exactly where and how to move, exactly how Kristo would react, and exactly what came next in their little dance. A formidably opponent or ally any day.

"Who are you?" Kristo demanded from deep within the concealing black of his shadow realm, asking of the assassin.

His opponent gave no answer, no response at all.

Kristo fired into the bleak darkness of his shadow realm, but the assassin tucked and twisted just out of the way, dodging each and every bullet with little to no effort. Kristo bowed his head, trying to aim ahead of the assassin, but each shot was easily evaded without any problem.

This assassin was good.

But, still, this attacker's style was sloppy, Kristo noted. His motions were ungainly and awkward. Although his reactions were faster than lightning, this character still moved with the same grace and cunning action as the shadow walker. This was not a trained warrior, nor a warrior by birth, as in the case of Kristo.

The shadow walker could use this to his advantage, but more so in the real world.

"Let's play more."

They fell from the shadow realm, plummeting back and into reality.

xxxx

Robin ran.

She felt her heart beating, slamming in her chest with fear.

Kristo had never done anything but keep them safe, protect them. He had even offered up his life for Robin's and the witches' several times. The Craft user could not longer allow these debts to go unpaid. And, more than that, she could no longer allow herself to just watch Kristo go off to his death so many times for them.

"Kristo…."

The teenager breathed the name as she bolted, dodging this way and that through the cherry trees and deeper into the park. Kristo had vanished into the dark of the night somewhere back there, but, with his shadow melding, the man could have been anywhere. All Robin could do was pray and hope that she could find the man in time. She just poured her heart into running, leaping.

"Please…"

xxxx

Kristo grinned madly.

He had dropped them in the very best of places, right into the water of the reflecting pool. Kristo grabbed at the loose strands of dark night, using them to his advantage, hauling his body sharply over. He landed with a gentle splash. His opponent, meanwhile, had been only able to flop into the water with a tremendous wave of water.

The shadow walker slipped into the water, and into the dark of the depths.

He had to see this assassin's face before Kristo ended his life. The shadow walker turned through the night and the darkness of the void, Kristo swirled around the assassin and ripped at the hood and glasses perched upon his opponent's face. They dropped into the water, slipping into the dark depths and vanishing into the darkness, like Kristo into the shadows.

He swirled around the form, looking to this attacker's face.

"What…?"

xxxx

A commotion!

Somewhere, there was splashing water, as if someone slogged through a stream, a lake… or maybe even a pool of some sort.

Robin blinked, remembering the Reflecting Pool. For years, it spanned between the Washington and Lincoln Monuments, shimmering under the sky as the tale spire stabbed into the shallow waters. She was close to it, very close. And Kristo probably was, too. The girl turned sharply, wheeling and barreling around the trees, her skirt catching slightly about her legs as the girl bolted.

The Craft user ran,

Her flames fell behind her, trailing with Robin as she ran. Her fear for Kristo swelled, fueling those flames of terror. And somewhere within, Robin wondered where this strange loyalty came from.

And, then, she stopped dead, coming to a slamming halt and almost tipping right over.

There, in the water, there stood two forms. One trudging through the water, lunging and stabbing at Kristo with what seemed like a knife of some form. And Kristo just seemed to hold a look of shock and surprise at the assassin that attacked him. And Robin could see precisely why.

The assassin was none other than Kathain.

"KRISO!"

xxxx

Mmm…. You were right, EmoFairyPrincess. Kathain it is.


	12. Instant Dreams

TOUCHING GOD 

Assassins.

Spies.

Devils of the night.

They were creatures of dark and darkness its self. They had no emotion, no feeling, no life or earthly desires. They just were. They were shapeless of heart, and, yet, galvanized in spirit. They were whole and yet entirely dispersed and spread thin at the same time.

They were as water.

Life and air flowed in and out of them, slipping with each subtle, slight inhale and exhale. They allowed these transient elements to the universe to just ebb and wane within them, as if out of their control. However, every tiny breath, every twitch of even the smallest of muscles remained completely aware in each of their minds.

They were warriors.

However, Kristo had the upper hand- physically. No man or woman alive could top his skills, save perhaps one of the other Thirteen. No one could match his sword, cross steel and survive. And, yet, Kristo had his katana and his pistols. He was well armed and well ready for anything, any sort of problem, from the simplest of traps to the very worst of attacks. He hadn't, however, quite mentally prepared to battle his own friend.

And Kathain? That Oracle came with the very worst of weapons. For, what the girl lacked in sheer skills, the precognitive more than made up with by her gifts. Kathain could read Kristo's future and her own. She could tell exactly which moves the shadow walker would choose. She knew the precise outcome of the battle.

Which could only mean one thing, really.

Kristo just staggered back in the water, mildly shocked, but still ready with his pistols, still trained and aimed upon the girl. "Kathain…"

The girl didn't answer, nor did she even seem to respond. There lay not a single flicker of recognition in her eyes nor in her face. It was as if Kristo had never even existed to her, as if she knew nothing about him nor the life they had lead together. No. There wasn't even a single reaction to the name. Kathain didn't exist anymore.

"Kathain…" he breathed again, more desperate, as if attempting to draw forth his former friend from that dark shell.

But there was no return for Kathain. At least, not now. She was gone, lost to the world and lost to everyone. That sprite like form pounced upon Kristo, knocking him belong the water and into that dark world. Instinctively, the shadow walker melded with the night, and they plummeting into the abyss, out of the water and into the air of the void, into that strange realm of dark and black.

He grabbed her fiercely and threw the girl from off him. Kathain slammed to the ground in a sprawled slide but scrambled to her feet swiftly, knife still in hand. The girl crouched low, her weight balanced on precariously perched balls of her feet. Kathain teetered, like some demonic entity, glaring at Kristo with vacant eyes.

He dropped the pistols of his deep into the darkness. That void cradled them swiftly, drawing the weapons back and away from the girl. Kristo reached out, searching for something, hungering for a weapon he had not touched in years. It had rested there, in a special place among his arms and hidden from the world in the void. Kathain's eyes had never seen it before, at least, not this particular implement. And, yet, there it remained, untouched by time or any man's hand after all those years.

Sakabatto.

The name rang sweet in his mind as Kristo called forth the blade from the night and from the darkness its self. Long, slender, katana-like, with one, glaring difference. The actual edge side was reversed, gleaming razor sharp from the wrong side of the blade. The long sheath, in black flat lacquer fell away and into the shadows, vanishing into nothingness. The uncommonly and distinctively wide curving blade gleamed despite the dark of Kristo's own abyss.

Kathain didn't seem frightened by it even the slightest bit.

It didn't matter. Kristo couldn't kill her. He could never strike her down and slay that girl who had been his friend, no matter what magics had been inflicted upon her. They, the others, they would find a way to bring back the girl Kristo had once known, because this was most certainly not the same creature. The reverse blade of the sakabatto forced Kristo to pause before ever laying down a killing blow.

"Kathain, do not make me attack you," Kristo growled.

The girl cocked her head to one side rather mockingly as the warrior spoke those words. She held no emotion, however, no fear, no surprise or humor. She just seemed to casually regard Kristo with a complete and total lack of humanity, as if studying him with the keen and sharp mind of the warrior himself.

Emotionless.

Perfection. The perfect warrior held no emotions. No sympathy for his enemy. No guilt for the deaths doled out. The perfect warrior felt no fear, no hesitation, and no regret. They could lose all feeling and fall out of existence. To make it worse, the perfect warrior, much like Kathain, knew what would come back.

She fell back, still casually and carefully studying Kristo.

"Kathain…"

xxxx

"Kristo…"

Robin just stood there and stared along the banks of the Reflecting Pool in sheer horror. The girl had just watched Kristo and Kathain plunge deep into the depths of the abyss. And the Craft user? She was powerless to do anything, say anything. All she could do was wait.

"No."

Robin had grown tired of waiting. There was no sense to this, to any of this. The teenager had been fed up enough with the others, with their lack of concern, with their ability to so easily just sit and let things play out for the better or the worse. No. Not Robin. This witch was master of her own fate and no one else could stop her. This fire starter held within her the Arcanum of the Craft, the secrets of all witchcraft. Perhaps even some slight hints to the gifts of Kristo, to the Thirteen.

Robin reached deep into herself and, then, opened her secret eye, he sight of the Arcanum. There, in the water, remained a lingering bit of Kristo's energy, his signature. The swordsman hadn't really left that spot. Well, he had, but he hadn't. The man had simply slipped from this reality and into his own fabrication of darkness and shadow. And, yet, somehow, Kristo's essence lingered on, despite his absence.

Robin bit her lip for a moment. She could always go to him, go to Kathain…. But…

The hell with it.

Robin jumped into the soaking, chilling water.

"I'm coming, Kristo…"

xxxx

"Kathain, I don't want to hurt you."

Kristo kept the full end of the katana forward, ready to strike but not kill the girl before him with the sakabatto. The man had never wanted this to ever come to pass. Even then, guilt and regret flooded into the man and instantly drained out as Kristo banished those emotions.

Kathain shifted on her feet. "I am not the person you speak of."

The girl lunged, keeping her boot knife up, aiming directly at Kristo's heart. And, yet, the swordsman had seen this coming. He stepped out the way and immediately found the girl before him again, knife ready, flashing through the air towards Kristo's gut, aiming to slice apart his gullet and eager to feel the warm viscera of her enemy upon her fingers. Kathain danced with him, moving slickly to the left, darting around him again. That was the danger of this creature, knowing each and every move of Kristo's before it had even been thought. She slashed at him with such seeming rage and, yet, such unfeeling capriciousness.

"Kathain, this is wrong, this is a dream," Kristo shouted, bringing the sakabatto around at the girl, aiming for her head.

Yet, again, the red head just skipped out of the way. "O God! Can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"

The swordsman stumbled, almost falling over as he jerked back, away from this creature, this warrior that had once been his peacefully, little friend. Those words. They had been written once, long ago. Kristo could just hardly recognize them. Poe. Edgar Allen Poe. It was a poem. One of Kathain's favorite writers. The girl he had once known still lingered within that dead shell. At least, some scrap of her remained.

"Kathain!" He swung sharp and hard, bringing the sakabatto down atop the girl. She rolled to the right with uncanny accuracy and seeming previous knowledge as Kristo spoke again, arguing with her. "We were friends once. You and I. You have to remember…"

Kathain just shook her head, tossing her copper locks from the tight bun her hair had been tied in. That look didn't suit the girl. It didn't seem right at all. The tight, black clothes, the sharply pulled back hair. It wasn't the Kathain Kristo knew and still loved somewhere deep inside of him. The stray bits of hair seemed more like the artist Kristo had once known.

"Please, just remember…."

xxxx

Kristo.

Robin held onto his name, clutching it close to her heart. She followed the trail of energy, slipping into the night and focusing intently on her target, her goal. The swordsman. He was close. So very close. And he hurt, so very much. But not physically.

Robin flushed.

Emotion, from the rock that was the shadow walker.

She fell, plummeting through the night and into the void, having lost her good, sharp grip on the man the girl had been hunting for. Robin let out a shrill scream, piercing the dark with the wind that whistled past her ears, roaring and shrieking at her. And, then, the world stopped. Everything stop.

Life froze.

Robin cracked open a wary eye as she just floated there, her skirt and hair billowing up around her. The Craft user just hung there, among the black, like some long dead and drowned Ophelia.

And, there, beneath her, was Kristo and Kathain.

xxxx

I love being devilish.


	13. AntiWire

Anti-Wire 

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not dead.

No, unfortunately, a lot of bad things have gone on in my little realm over the last few weeks. A lot of good has happened, but lots of bad has over shadowed that good.

My one roommate didn't pay the cable bill, so we had to have him close out his account so we could get cable internet again at the house. But, because there's a current balance left on the modem, we can't use that modem. So, we're waiting for a new modem to be sent by Comcast to the house.

In addition to that, I have just discovered that a roommate we asked to leave (because he was an abhorrent jackass) has been committing credit fraud against me, this, two weeks after he moved out. He also left his room a mess.

So, long story short, I haven't had a chance to write, or the abilities to post.

But, worry not, for I am in the middle of a fun chapter, I promise!

As soon as the internet is back on at the house, I will be ready to share!

Cyren


	14. Digital Darkness

TOUCHING GOD 

"They've been gone too long."

Amon paced nervously as they waited for Robin and Kristo to return. The former hunter mentally chastised himself for allowing the teenage witch to go chasing after the shadow walker. If anything happened to her, the man hardly knew what he would do, especially to Kristo.

"We should go after them."

Brett shook his head, his eyes sad and grim. "No. We can't. Not with Kristo."

Amon hadn't thought of it that way. The shadow walker could have just melded with the night and opened a pocket dimension for himself and the hunter in the dark. It was as simple as that. Hell, for all Amon knew, the swordsman could have just hurled the assassin into the abyss and left him there to rot, to starve to death in the lonely, cold void.

Nah. That didn't fit Kristo's style.

"We can't just leave them," Amon argued.

Geoff stood and strode up sharply from the tree he'd been sitting up against. "We have no other choice." The bartender shook his head. "You know that's why Kristo had his gifts. To protect. You can't help him."

Amon swung around and punched him fiercely, knocking Geoff back from him. "Watch me."

xxxx

The girl hissed.

Actually hissed.

And, yet, there came no emotion from it. Robin watched in awe and horror as Kathain moved, her body ever enveloped in a glowing, pale light, as though her own aura. No. For this was no spirit. This was Kathain's Craft. It seeped from her, permeating everything, touching everything, even Robin. The girl knew what would happen, know how things would happen and in what order. This was her gift.

Which meant Kathain had gone into this battle knowing already how it would unfold.

The precognitive spun right, slashing at Kristo's back, but the swordsman had seen it coming. He just lightly dodged out of the way, reeling back and around the girl.

Robin balled her hand into a tight fist, igniting a sudden spark of flame and fury, flashing behind her emerald eyes and flickering into existence in that shadow realm, despite a lack of fuel. Robin would be the fuel, burning her soul to save her friends. The teenage Craft user allowed the world to bloom and blossom in flames around her, wreathing the combatants in a flaming ring. The teenager allowed her passion, her worry to explode outward and into the round.

"Stop…." She just whispered, a controlled, hushed statement.

The void yawned before her.

xxxx

Somewhere within him, Amon actually gave a damn whether or not Geoff would forgive him for the sharp slug he'd just delivered. But, in his own right, Amon didn't exactly care entirely. No. He didn't really care all that much in the end. The former hunter was, and would always be his own man. Thirteen be damned.

And, right then, in that moment, his heart beat fiercely in his chest, aching to see Robin alive and well, breathing and moving, uninjured. It didn't matter what any of the Thirteen said or did. Amon would always be loyal to those he chose to be so to. The great stoic Amon actually held emotion, held care and regard for others. He just very rarely showed it. However, it always lingered, despite how faint it may have been. His concern continued on, a glowing ember in the night.

The former hunter skirted around a tree.

How familiar this felt. How utterly natural. The world seemed to embrace its child in the form of Amon, as if he were really a creature of nature, nocturnal and predatory. He felt his back itch and crawl with energy, as if alive separately from the man.

Amon ran.

His legs stretched out, pouring off energy and steam over the land, feeling his feet connect with the earth and spring off. Each stride drove him harder and faster, deeper through the parks and towards his goal. Trees blurred past him now, becoming one, faded muddle of dark blue and green color. Each step became one, flowing, sinuous motion, streaking through the park and across the land.

This was familiar.

Amon could see it now. A form ahead of him, running through the woods, away from him. Robin? No. This creature bound and leapt with the grace of a deer, with long, flowing skirts of cream flowing behind her. This was an entirely different being.

Amon blinked. "Kathain…."

No, this was not Kathain. Never Kathain. She was gone, lost to them. That was why they had come to Washington, to find and save her. It could never be Kathain.

"I'm coming, Robin."

xxxx

She whirled around, a fierce, dancing dervish of rage. The flames of Robin's passion and anger rose around the girl, enveloping Kathain in a white hot light. And, yet the precognitive could not be touched by them. The girljust allowed the flames to curl around her, to encircle her body and soul. Kathain's Craft reached out, reading every inch and motion of energy, riding out every sinuous motion.

Her boot knife came around swiftly, back behind Kristo's back.

The swordsman didn't see it coming. Robin could see that now. He had rested too much focus on trying to save Kathain and not in trying to beat this new foe that had been their former friend. Or, as the warrior's face softened, the teenage witch wondered if he was allowing this.

Kathain didn't care. Her knife screamed through the air, but moved ever so slowly, as time froze around them, grinding to a halt.

Kristo just seemed to grow so quiet of spirit, so relaxed and accepting. Even his eyes, those blue orbs usually filled with the dark of night and the shadows of the void flooded with nothing less than casual concern. His lips parted, forming a sad sort of smile, curving with sweet sorrow at the site of this dark assassin.

"Kathain."

The name echoed out and into eternity.

The assassin plunged her knife deep into Kristo's back, into flesh with a meaty crunch. She drove the blade deep, up to the hilt, feeling the blood run down her hand. Yet, even as she twisted the blade, digging into the shadow walker's flesh harshly, no expression, no emotion appeared on her face. Kathain remained ever vacant. No sorrow. No rage. Not even smug satisfaction as striking down the mighty Kristo.

Yet Robin had seen the truth.

Kristo had allowed Kathain to take that move.

"How could you?" he whispered.

The girl hissed the words into his ear, pouring them with a silky tongue. "Inhale. Kill. Exhale."

"You know we will never stop hunting you?" Kristo sounded desperate to draw her home now.

Kathain gave the blade another sharp twist, as if hunting for guts and viscera under the sharply honed edge of the boot knife. "Did you think I went into this knowing any differently?"

"If you are the same girl I knew, anywhere in that shell of a human being, you wouldn't have been able to do it," the man said in a barely audible breath.

Kathain jerked the blade from his muscle, hearing the tear and splatter of crimson in the void. "I told you. I am not the person you call Kathain, nor have I ever been."

Robin watched in horror as the void melted away around them, dispelled and dying.

Kristo sank down to his knees in the Reflecting Pool. Thankfully, they had moved to a shallow end through the battle, and the water rose only up to his chest. Robin just gazed for a moment as Kathain stalked off, into the night and into the darkness. Then, she rushed to Kristo's side, her dress dragging her down in the water. The teenager wrapped her arms around the warrior.

"Kristo…"

xxxx

Amon ran, following the glowing, pale form.

Kathain…. Or Robin…. Or whatever this was, it led him through the cherry trees. They moved together, striding through the woods. She seemed to dance and lilt over the air, as if the heavy scent of the blossoms kept her feet from ever gracing the ground. The girl sprang with light, delicate steps as they moved together.

And, suddenly, as the trees grew sparse and the woods opened up to the Reflecting Pool and the Mall, the girl stopped and turned suddenly on the ball of her heel. Her face finally met Amon's, pale and full of worry. Her eyes were wide and horrified, as if witness to some terrible act. Those dainty, rosy lips quivered. This was Kathain, in all her ancient splendor.

"Amon!"

The figure faded into nothingness just as Amon reached out to grab her, to embrace that veiled spirit.

She left him there, alone and abandoned.

His eyes fell to the ground. "Kathain…"

The former hunter looked up, to the Reflecting Pool. The waters seemed so still and tranquil, so utterly perfect and undisturbed. His eyes lingered there for a moment, lingering on the pale reflections from the fluorescent lights that were about. And, then, that dark gaze of his settled upon an inky, black patch in the water, as if ink had been fed into the pool.

"Robin."

xxxx

She cradled him there, feeling the weight of Kristo's soul. But, somehow, despite the injury, the warrior held himself up. He ignored the blood loss as though it were but a trifling scrape or flesh wound, not a gaping whole in his back. The shadow walker just gazed out, as if contemplating whether to drift off into the abyss, to meld with the night, or to remain with the teenager.

He had been beaten and broken, but not in battle. No, by spirit. The mighty Kristo had fallen. He allowed Kathain to stab him, hoping that the precognitive would not be able to bear the thought of harming her friend, her loyal protector. The warrior had counted on the sheer shock and mental torment of the situation breaking whatever mind control or mental programming that had been instilled in Kathain.

But, no, nothing could reach her. Not words. Not battle. Not blood. Nothing.

She was gone.

"Robin!" Amon's voice.

Kristo could barely here it. His mind still reeled, still tried to resolve some way to bring back their sweet, innocent little Oracle, Kathain.

"Robin, what happened?" Amon shouted as he trudged through the waters.

"Kathain… she" the girl trailed off.

Kristo supplied the rest.

"She is gone."

xxxx

I am hated.


	15. Resurrection

**TOUCHING GOD**

Jonas hadn't seen what happened.

No. Only Robin had seen what happened. And, suddenly, the man who had seen just about everything come through the Masquerade, through that bar and club, thought he hadn't seen anything. Jonas thought he understood. Jonas thought he knew. But, then again, people always want to hope such things.

Jonas couldn't imagine what had happened when he saw Kristo, bloodied and stabbed in the back, very literally. Jonas had seen the warrior after battle before, after true, pure combat, but he had never really seen the shadow walker come back without a scratch on him. In fact, the blonde was hard pressed to even recall a time he had ever seen Kristo's blood spilt in any fight.

This time, had been completely different. Blood poured from the deep wound in his back, dripping down and onto the ground. It spilt down his back, soaking through the back of Kristo's black shirt, and glistening a deep scarlet. And, yet, Kristo walked on his own, hunched over slightly in dejection. This was not the walk of a loosing opponent. This was the walk of a warrior still contemplating the battle, still replaying the events that had just occurred, whether victorious or losing.

Kristo brushed past him harshly.

Robin glanced up to Brett, looking at him with worried eyes, but the fire elemental just shrugged. "He'll be ok."

But, somehow, Robin couldn't be sure.

xxxx

Leanna watched them leave.

The man had dragged her into the night, into the darkness its self. He had hauled her body into the shadows, into a deep, dark void of nature. The void of her mind or the void of black and penetrating nothingness? Yet, could nothingness, something of absolute inexistence truly penetrate as it had?

Leanna had never had the time to contemplate such things, nor did she have the time then. In truth, all that mattered was that her target had done it. Only physical tangibility mattered. Her mind reeled, contemplating every possibility. The man obviously brought her somewhere else, or brought somewhere else to her. Witch craft lay within his heart and soul. There was no question about it. And in the girl, the teenager with the fire craft.

The assassin silently sat among the trees. She need not follow them, Leanna only needed to open the doorway in her mind to locate these people in any place or time. The girl could afford to let them slip away.

In truth, Leanna had already known the outcome of the battle before she entered it. Leanna knew it would end in a stalemate of sorts. The precognitive had gone only to see and to send a message. She wanted the witches to be psychologically impacted by the sheer violence and swiftness of her attacks. Leanna wanted the witches to know more about her, to know that she hunted them and that she knew each and every one of their moves before it was ever even contemplated.

Leanna was a bitch like that.

The shadow walker had surprised her in one aspect, however, but it was of little concern. He allowed her to pierce his flesh, to stab her weapon in him. Even then, Leanna glanced down her perch in the tree, holding her boot knife over the verdant, green grass, allowing a single droplet to fall. His blood was evidence of this. The warrior just let her stab him.

Leanna replaced the boot knife, sighing heavily.

No, that wasn't the worst part. This stranger had called her "Kathain." He used this alien name over and over again, swearing to her that she was this person. No. For she was Leanna. Warrior. Assassin. Hunter. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, and it was a mere detail to the grand scheme of things. Still, if this creature knew anything more about her and her past, he might know things that he could use against her. Leanna had to take that into account.

The girl jumped down easily, leaving any lingering concerns in that tree.

She was an assassin; she had patience. More than that. Leanna had made her mark that night. Now, she had to wait. The trap had been set, the correct bait left in her place.

They would come to her.

xxxx

Brett stalked behind Kristo.

He watched the blood pouring out. The flow had thinned, drastically, probably Kristo gaining control over his bodily functions and slowed his own heartbeat. Kristo had trained for years, honing his skills and learning how to work in conjunction with the way the human body had been structured. It was something Brett had tried to learn, but never truly mastered.

He stared in amazement as the shadow walker accepted the pain and lived with it, walking of his own accord. There was a tale, still flitting about, of Kristo and his time in the military. Somewhere, in some long forgotten village, a spat of houses in the middle of the roughest terrain he had ever seen, Kristo had been shot in the back. It wasn't just the fact that he'd been shot in the back; it was the fact that he had been shot thirteen or fourteen times. There was no chance that the man would be able to make his way back to any semblance of a safe area with those wounds. Nor was there any chance the military would just let him loose if they knew the beaten he'd taken, and doled out in return. Kristo had sat there, in an old, decaying house, sandwiched between two mirrors, reaching behind himself to dig out each and every slug by himself.

Brett had never believed the story. Now, he had proof. The gunshot in Japan, it had been nothing compared to this. This was worse. The assassin had been swift, reaching in and digging about, hunting to do the most damage. And, still, Kristo remained ever composed and quiet, still contemplating a course of action.

It wasn't safe. Not anywhere. Not with this assassin on the prowl. Not if he could cut Kristo and get away with it. Brett hated to admit it, but, if someone could get a strike that bad in on Kristo, they could just as easily cut down the Thirteen without batting an eye.

Brett's silent, peaceful realm of thought was shattered when Robin almost dropped like a stone beside him. The fire elemental reached out, curling an arm around her and catching the teenager. She looked so pale and so tired. And, in truth, after the last forty-eight hours of running on pure adrenaline and nothing more, Brett honestly didn't blame her. In truth, he could have passed out right then, too.

"I'm sorry," the girl whimpered.

Brett shook his head. "We can't keep this up." He glanced up. "Kristo, we need to stop for the night. We need to rest."

"No," the shadow walker growled, not bothering to look back.

The fire elemental flared, feeling his own ancient glory rising within, angry and white hot. "We can't do this anymore."

"We have to." Kristo froze, stiffening.

Nycole felt worry tremble through the group. Not a single one of them had ever heard such quiet venom in the warrior's voice, such deep bass and annoyance. No, not annoyance. Just sharp and keen knowing. Kristo hid something. Something as dark as the shadows within the void and the abyss its self.

Amon couldn't say anything. Niether could Robin. The girl just bit her lip subconsciously. How could anyone utter such darkly and purely evil, vile words. Amon wasn't entire sure what had happened.

"Kristo," Nycole breathed, ever so softly and delicately.

Brett glanced to Robin, but the Craft user just looked away.

Jonas finally grew angry and bitter enough to cry out. "No. You know what? I'm not playing into this bullshit or playing beat around the bush. What in the hell is going on, Kristo?" At first, the swordsman didn't answer, but Jonas snarled louder. "I will leave without a second thought and leave all of you to get fucked… royally."

Kristo knew it was true. Jonas held no loyalty to the Thirteen, no real loyalty to the cause. He had only gone for Kathain, for that innocent little Oracle. Jonas knew her gifts were dangerous, dark, and potent. They were not something to be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. There were just some things that could not happen, no matter how much Jonas didn't want to be involved.

But the Thirteen needed him. And Jonas? He was one of the Thirteen. This was his duty. They needed one another.

Kristo sighed. "It's Kathain."

Nycole looked down. "What's happened to her?"

"She's… not herself," the warrior answered rather flatly and uncaringly. "She was our assassin tonight."

The empath shook her head fiercely. "No. It can't be."

"It was," Kristo argued. "I saw her. I fought her. I know her. She may not know herself, but I know her."

Brett blinked, trying to sort things out mentally. "What happened?"

"I have absolutely no idea." The shadow walker practically laughed at that one. "But it doesn't matter. She's changed sides. She knows all about us, knows about the future, but has no idea who she is." Kristo sighed. "It's the very worst case scenarios."

"Why? Sounds like fun," Jonas sniffed.

Brett shuddered. "Don't you understand?"

Kristo shook his head slowly, solemnly, knowing the full gravity of the situation. "She is touching God."

xxxx

Zaizen was pleased.

Leanna knew not why. He had hungered for the deaths of all witches, especially these. And, yet, with telling him of how she had toyed with them in order to dole a crushing psychological blow, Zaizen seemed tickled pink. He practically beamed with pride and joy at her actions.

"This is absolutely perfect," he had told her.

Leanna wasn't entirely sure, but she didn't care. The girl had come back to warm, dry facilities, and a hot shower to relax her muscles from the fight. She stepped into the scalding water and adjusted it until the shower no longer burnt at her skin. But it felt so utterly relaxing, loosening her muscles. The assassin reached back, massaging her lower back and easing out the knots from the physical exertion.

The feeling of blood of her hands screamed out. That man, with the long black hair. His image flashed through her mind. He was putting an arm around her, and smiling warmly. There were other people, laughing and joking. And that girl with the red hair and the fiery craft, she was speaking with Leanna.

Her hand dropped away.

Leanna cut off the water and stood there, dripping for a moment. She remembered nothing of the time before Zaizen had told her of her name. Amnesia. Yet, there seemed no real cause that she could think of. From the very start, Leanna had known Zaizen lied to her. She just couldn't figure out about what or why.

Her mind slipped away, wondering for a moment.

She drew a towel around her for a moment, drying herself before dropping the thing and slipping into bed. It didn't matter. Leanna needed sleep, needed to recharge her system before anything else happened with these witches.

Leanna closed her eyes slowly.

But dreams would not come.

xxxx

"Hold the mirror higher."

"Of course." Robin whispered the words as she lifted the pane of glass. "Better?"

Kristo gave a sniff of acknowledgement as he prodded at the wound. Raven shook his head slowly, but took a finger to the deep hole. The runemal took a dram of blood and traced long, elegant strokes on Kristo's pale skin. Robin didn't recognize it. But, almost instantly, the blood melted away with a slight sizzle. The steam rose away as the wound sealed. It would be tender, but it wouldn't kill him.

"Thanks, Raven."

The bald man nodded, knowing that Kristo could have probably dealt with the wound himself, but that a little help made it easier.

"What do we do about Kathain?" Amon finally asked.

Kristo gave it a moment thought. "We kick the crap out of her." Nycole frowned and gave the swordsman a harsh slap, but the swordsman just shrugged it off. "And, then, we'll bring her home."

"Much better."

xxxx

Mmm…. Plotting to come.


	16. Beyond the Horizon

**TOUCHING GOD**

"_In this world, there will always be three Oracles."_

_Leanna practically shuddered at her own words, feeling nothing, or, perhaps, something at them. They were spoken with such hushed and vaguely harsh tones, riddled with mystery and a strange sense of impending doom. That whispered truth seemed wrapped in a dark sense of foreboding._

_She looked down to her hands, pale under their scarlet stain. _

_It dripped to the earth. _

_Leanna ran her fingers together, over the still warm crimson. The liquid remained just as fresh and as temperate as the man she had taken it from. It was the blood of the warrior, the blood of the samurai. He had been a worthy adversary, and the blood spilt had been hard owned. There lingered the unearthly feeling of having struck down a god in the sweetness of that sickly strike of hers, deep into his flesh._

_God. _

_No. He was no god. Leanna saw that now. He was but a witch._

_His blade slashed through her, straight through her flesh and done to the bone with a deadly, meaty crunch. The burning metal sliced through her with little effort, searing down through to the core. And, yet, she felt nothing more than the actual cut its self. Leanna welcomed the slashing, driving blow, closing her eyes and arching her back towards it. _

_Strange emotions._

_Did she want herself dead?_

_Leanna had never contemplated such things. _

_Suicide was a waste of time and the resources put into her. _

"_You can't."_

_Time seemed to sing to her, crooning sweetly and sickly in her ear. Leanna couldn't believe it at first, but the voices came to her just as surely as any other. They spoke in frail and whispered tones, hanging on the wind and the very gossamer fabric of the universe. And only Leanna could understand their secret language. _

"_You are far more important."_

xxxx

"Damn."

Leanna opened her eyes with a cracked caution. The girl mentally chastised herself for having falling asleep in her perch, dozing just ever so slightly with the sinking of the sun in the east. She had grown too comfortable with all this. Sure, Leanna had the upper hand, knowing exactly how everything would play out, but that didn't mean the assassin could let her guard down for but a moment.

She yawned wide and stretched each and every one of her muscles, tense from sitting still for so very long. Leanna could wait longer; she knew she could. But, on the same token, Leanna knew she didn't have to. They were coming for her.

All she need do was wait.

xxxx

"This doesn't smell right."

Nycole snickered to herself and gave Sakaki a slight slap on the arm. "It smells like cherry flowers, and you know it."

Sakaki shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

The empath didn't need Haruto's input to know something felt off in the group. In truth, the girl didn't even need her gifts and Craft to know it. They were quiet, morose and somber. The Thirteen had held their tongues for close to the entire day, saying only exactly that which had to be said. They spent the day lounging about a hotel room uneasily, sitting around and planning, plotting, preparing. And, yet, somehow, all felt that no manners of preparation could truly ready them to face Kathain again.

And, now, they were back, back in the Mall, following her trail from the Reflecting Pool back up to the woods. It actually took them some time to find her path, amidst the footsteps and tell tale signs of the millions of tourists from the day. And, yet, there it remained, refreshed even. Kathain had been there, maybe three or four hours before them, skulking about the grounds.

Amon knew exactly what to do. He just wished Karasuma were there. Miho would just have reached down, touched the foot prints, and scryed into Kathain's mind. Simple. And, yet, they just couldn't.

Kristo seemed to understand; he glanced up to Nycole. "Would you?"

The girl nodded slowly, solemnly. She looked unhappy, as if reluctant and unsure of herself. The empath didn't seem pleased at all with the thought of reaching into Kathain's mind, but it was a necessary evil. They needed Nycole to do this one, simple thing. She would oblige, grudgingly so, out of honor and loyalty to the Thirteen, to her friends. The telepath knelt down, placing a tender hand upon the tracks, trying to avoid disturbing the prints in any way, shape, or form.

She closed her eyes, feeling her mind unfold.

'_Kathain.'_

Nycole's brow furrowed, feeling around for her friend, for Kathain's consciousness in the grand scheme of things in the universe.

'_No.'_

The universe screamed back in reply.

'_Leanna.'_

The world shuddered that word. It was a name, a person, a being and consciousness. It was the newest birth, the first and last, so it seemed. Even the world and all minds encompassed together seemed to be coalesced on this one thought.

'_Oracle. Hunter. Assassin. Killer.'_

Nycole's stomach turned sour at the last word. Kathain was no killer, no murder. But, she was no longer Kathain. She was Leanna. Who knew is Leanna was capable of such things that Kathain was not? Wo knew what Zaizen had changed within Kathain when he bastardized that spritish girl into the creature known by all life and existence as Leanna? How much could one man have destroyed?

'_Find them. Eliminate them.'_

"Leanna!" Nycole's eyes snapped open in a flash as she jumped in shock and horror.

"What?"Brett blurted out.

The empath didn't waste any time scrambling back to her feet and glancing around; her blue eyes flitting this way and that, scanning each and every shadow. "Leanna. She's here, somewhere." Nycole's voice wavered with surprising urgency and terror. "Where are you, Leanna?"

Sakaki grabbed her shoulder suddenly, squeezing it sharply. "Stop. Explain."

"Leanna. Kathain." Nycole shook her head, tossling her coppery locks in a sudden swish of her head. "Leanna is Kathain. Or, at least, what's left of her."

"What do we do?" Sakaki inquired softly, his fingertips brushing against her cheek.

"We pray."

xxxx

"They are coming."

Leanna watched.

The empath, damn her, she already seemed to know. With one, casual touch of her fingers and her mind, that red head had figured out so very much so very quickly. No matter. The assassin could work around that.

But they were drawing near already, sooner than anticipated.

Leanna drew in a deep breath and left her perch.

Things were in motion now.

xxxx

"She's here…."

Nycole stumbled this way and that, tottering on uneasy legs. To any passerby, her ungainly motions, with her arms stretched out in front of her, would have looked like the swaggering walk of a drunkard. But, to those that knew her, to those that were sensitive, they could see the glaring difference. Nycole held her hands up, palms outward, feeling about and probing with both her hands and her mind, searching, ever hunting.

Kristo drew his sakabatto from the shadows, resting the weight easily in one hand and keeping it ready. "Get ready."

"Where is she?" Amon asked of no one, drawing his own pistol.

"Right here." A sinister voice gave the answer as a shadow dropped down from the trees directly in the center of them.

Nycole screamed as a hand shot out of the night and grabbed her, dragging her back and into the night, back and away from this interloper. She opened her eyes and calmed instantly, seeing that Kristo had just jerked her through the night back to his side. He stood at a sharp attention, every muscle on edge and ready for this second encounter. Kristo would not allow himself to be taken as he had the first time. This time, Kristo meant business.

But Nycole slammed her weight hard forward, shrugging off his hold. "Leanna!"

The shadow turned, cocking its head to one side. "Who asks?"

"I do. Oracle to the Thirteen!" Nycole cried out.

The form stood tall, as if considering this. "Oracle…"

Something flashed in the night. There was a quick motion in the night, in the dark and the nothingness of the void.

"LEANNA!"

xxxx

Um…. Meeting time?


	17. Fusion

TOUCHING GOD 

There are moments in time and space when the world seems either so utterly perfect or so perfectly tragic that the entire universe becomes such a minutia of emotion. The entirety of known existence can be collapsed down into a singularity so small and yet so grandiose at the same time that there remains nothing else. There is but the pure essence of an event, of time and space, compressed down to but a grain of sand in the grand scheme of everything.

However, breath, and that bit of sand is gone, lost to the winds of change.

She gasped, feeling the sweet coolness of the air suddenly so sharp and panging in her lungs, stinging at her in the most strangely refreshing way. Her eyes went wide, opening to the night, to the nothingness around her and yet the true expanse of the cosmos. Those cerulean blue spheres gazed out, seeing everything and nothing, seeing beyond the realm of normal human vision.

This was her grain of sand.

A millisecond expanded and stretched out into infinity There, in that moment, she could almost hear the breathes of the mice, birds, and squirrels, all bedding down around them. Her ears pricked to the sounds of each individual blade of grass as they rasped across one another in a silent breeze. Heartbeats echoed, low and deep, bellowing into the night and into the shadows. Pale blue light poured down and danced across the tree tops. Even dead things felt suddenly alive and charged with energy, eager with anticipation. And, yet, the feeling felt gone long before it had even started, as those echoes and reverberations faded away to time.

Only a second or two really passed.

And in that moment, so much happened, everything changed in that sheer heartbeat. There stemmed a flurry of motion, exploding outward from that alcove in the woods. A streak of black whirled around them, into them, spurned by a flash of gleaming metal.

Nycole held her breath.

Brett had made the first move, sparked by his own anxiousness, his own longing to end this. The fire elemental had wanted nothing more than to safely contain Kathain, Leanna, whatever this creature was, to end her hunt. He just acted too quickly, drawing forth one of the throwing knives that had been providing to him by Kristo. In that instant, the blade was in motion, through the air, spinning directly towards the interloper's right shoulder.

The black of shadows, of evil and vile bastardization swirled around her, moving as a dervish, striking out and clawing at the air. Leanna's long, pale, delicate fingers, almost moon white against the darkest of shadows. And, somehow, they found home, curling around the blade end of the knife, squeezing. The huntress allowed the sharply honed edge to slice at her flesh for but a moment before giving the blade an elegant, quick flip to the handle end. With a simple, reeling motion, with all the tremendous power of the great tidal waves, Leanna rushed around Nycole, grabbing her fiercely and bringing the bloodied knife to the empath's bare and exposed throat.

"STOP!" Nycole cried out.

Leanna didn't seem to want to hear it. Her left hand steadily applied even pressure across huntress remained focused, intently glaring over her former friend's shoulder. The singularity event had ended; the bit of sand had been blown away by the breeze that had carried the assassin to her bait.

Now, Brett wouldn't play games. His flames burst into existence. Robin gasped now, drawing in the singing, stinging air, acrid with the usually welcoming scent of brimstone. The teenager normally enjoyed that scent and the sweet release of energy from within, but, this time, the girl just didn't like it. Robin's heart sank as the Arcanum recognized Brett's Craft, darkly fueled by his own fear and rage. He plumed with black energy, like the witches Robin used to hunt at Amon's side.

Brett had become one of the witches.

Robin blinked, unsure of what to do. Natural instinct told her to react, to lash out and subdue Brett. It took every bit of her control to keep from striking out with her own Craft at the fire elemental, to put him in his place. It was just a force of habit, instinct bred out of repetition. Robin balled her fist tight, though, and prepared for whatever Kathain could through back at them.

She felt the power of Geoff's own Craft rising, a swelling tidal wave of energy, building and amassing within him. Raven glowed with the slightest of markings, his own runic blessings. Bear stood ready, his hand out and prepared to fight. The dark of night curled around Kristo, welcoming him. Even Sakaki seemed prepared. They were ready, itching to end this as quickly as possible.

And Nycole? To Robin, the empath just seemed ready for it. Her neck remained arched back, away from the blade, as any human would, but the telepath looked entirely prepared for the duel hot and cold slash of the blade, the crunch and splatter of bodily mutilation at the hands of a former friend.

No. Still a friend, for Nycole would never give up on Kathain.

"Leanna…." The empath croaked.

Amon's heart contracted, watching this demoness of the night and the dark holding Nycole hostage. This was not the Kathain he had set out to save, to rescue from the hands of Zaizen. They had gotten to her too late. This was an entirely different breed of killer.

"Don't move," the assassin growled. "And don't even think about using your petty magicks to save her. You have seen my might, and you know I will just see it coming."

Amon nodded slowly, dropping his gun low, but Brett refused. "No."

"We don't have any other choice," Sakaki argued.

Leanna could have found the entire situation comical. These were the Thirteen, supposedly the saviors or the doomsayers of the universe. These were the Warriors. And, yet, they were nothing but squabbling children. It was completely the antithesis of what Leanna would have expected the fabled Warriors to be like.

Now, Jonas spoke, having the full authority of his position behind him. "Brett, hold." The Masquerade's bartender stood tall, hunching his head slightly, almost predatory, feeling the wealth and multitude of his own Craft crawling behind his eyes. "You moved to attack first." He took a step towards Leanna, peacefully, holding his empty hands out. "It was self defense." The blade pressed against Nycole's throat, leaving a line of scarlet. "Let's hear what the lady has to say before we cut her to pieces."

Leanna lowered her head, dipping it mildly in regard to the words of Jonas. He had reached her. A smile spread across the blonde's face, thick with satisfaction and delight at this chance of his. The man gave a lilting side step, almost jigging towards Leanna.

"My lady, if you would care to explain…" Jonas invited, giving a deep, mocking bow.

Leanna closed her eyes slowly, leaning close to Nycole's ear and whispering into it in a deep, almost husky voice, as if hoping for no one else to catch it. "You said Oracle to the Thirteen."

"Yes," Nycole replied, not bothering to lower her voice.

Leanna nodded. "Alright. Explain."

"You're precognitive. You should know that," Nycole hissed venomously.

The assassin squeezed down harder on the empath's throat. "I knew you would know that I see time and everything. But how do you know?" Leanna gripped the throwing knife tighter. "Why did they keep calling me Kathain?"

This had to end, and it would end there, with Nycole. The telepath had given enough chance to this, but they took too great of a risk. Kathain knew too much, even if she were Leanna, even if she could not remember, for the Thirteen to let her run about freely. It was far too great of liability for them to chance it. And, if anyone were going to take Kathain down, it would be Nycole; only she had the rights to bring down another Oracle.

"You tell me," the empath growled.

In an instant, Nycole popped her wings. She always loved to refer to that sweet, sudden release as those white things sprouted from between her shoulders. There would be that sickening tightening of all her muscles of the upper back, just before a sharp snap. It was rather like popping a joint, and, so, the term stuck. But there was no better way to describe the abruptness to the action, even knocking Leanna back and away from her.

Nycole's glory unfolded around her.

Sakaki grabbed at Robin and hauled her back, into the undergrowth; his only explanation came tersely as Nycole turned to face her quarry. "You don't want to be out there for this."

Sure enough, the Thirteen stepped back, giving the Oracles their due space and respect. Oracles were dangerous things, devilish and with all the power of time, space, emotion, and the universe on their side. At the snap of their fingers, they could see anything, know anything, and be able to change anything they wanted. And they were witches, to boot. Creatures of power and supreme knowledge to back it up. This would not be an easy fight in any manner of the word.

Robin gasped in awe. She had seen the sleek, ebony wings of Amon's, but she had never spied the resplendent things of an Oracle. They were white, glowing faintly with the shimmer of moonbeams and starlight. Nycole's were smaller than Amon's, practically tiny by comparison. However, hers were built like sparrow or dove wings, stretching softly and almost fluffy, where Amon's were sharper, more like raven's or hawk's.

The assassin took a step towards the telepath, but Nycole just slammed her wings down. For however tiny they seemed, those wings put forth a surprising amount of power, sending forth a rolling wave of energy and air. Leanna was thrown backwards. She flew through the air, carried by the sheer force of Nycole's single beat.

Leanna merely rolled back on the ground, tucking neatly and coming back up easily. "Good. A fight."

In a heartbeat, a flash of blinding, warm, yellow light erupted.

Amon stood, shielding his eyes, watching in horror. Leanna arched back in an elegant curve, her wings stabbing out from her flesh, as one, seemingly bound thing. They snapped apart, splitting suddenly and forming two, distinctively different appendages. It took but a breath of Leanna's to start a soft, simple beat of her wings, slow and languid. And, then, Leanna's feet settled upon the ground.

She stood ready, as soon avenging angel, her white wings spread for battle. They were long and built like a hawk's, fierce and feral. They matched this assassin and her personality. They were the wings for her.

Leanna hunkered down for a moment, spreading her wings high behind her. "You wanted a fight."

Nycole nodded. "Bring it on, bitch."

xxxx

Oracles doing battle. People fighting. What happened to everybody hugging and being happy? What happened to Full House endings? Oh… wait… I happened.


	18. Suspension Light

**TOUCHING GOD**

Regal.

It was the only way Robin could truly explain the pair of Oracles. Regal. Elegant. Awe inspiring. In truth, there were no words. This was true glory. Divine glory. This was the power of gods walking the earth. Gods and goddesses wrapped in human flesh and baptized by the tears of human sin.

Divinity.

Robin came so terribly close to such power with the Arcanum, but never anything like this. This was a sin. A grievous sin against nature and the very fabric of reality. No human was ever meant to bear such power, such terrible force. These two, and any of the Thirteen, really, seemed as thought they could rip the very world apart, split it in two.

"Amon…" Robin whispered.

The former hunter, her partner, glanced to her for a moment. "Just stay down."

There felt such anger, such rage and lust for vengeance in the air, thick and sickly, bearing down upon them. It felt noxious and god-awful. The feeling remained choking, suffocating and crushing.

Leanna seemed to have the upper hand, at least, physically. Her wings stretched longer, reached further, bore more thicker, more defined muscles. And, yet, they were but an illusion. Or, were they? Robin couldn't tell what was real and fake anymore. She had no idea how to properly gage such a battle. But there was the fact that the assassin still held Brett's throwing knife, stained with her own blood.

Nycole lashed out first, jumping with all her might, throwing her weight heavily at Leanna. The assassin just stepped rather neatly out of the way, her wings swooped out and fluffing back behind her. The assassin moved with the grace befitted her avian stature and nature.

Now, Leanna struck back, swatting Nycole fiercely with one of her long, white wings, knocking the empath to the ground.

It mattered not.

The physical battle was of importance. Nycole only care to distract Leanna enough to attempt to reach whatever was left of Kathain, lurking behind that dark exterior. She reached out with her mind, feeling and seeing the twinkling lights of thousands. Those lights flickered and sparkling against the black void where no consciousness remained. And, yet, there remained no Kathain. No sparkle, no dot of light where Leanna moved.

It haunted Nycole strangely.

Leanna lurched right, allowing a sharp lean to carry her body into motion, slashing the knife through the air, just barely missing Nycole.

Flames leapt out from nowhere, burning and racing towards Leanna. The assassin jumped and bent, contorting her body around the fire. The orange, blazing flames licked across her, dancing over her flesh. Leanna welcomed the energy, knowing exactly from who it stemmed and knowingly exactly how it would flare around her. All she needed do was move with the energy.

Robin watched the trail of energy, of Craft race back into the shadows, to Brett. The fire elemental stood at the ready, a ball of flame held in his hand. His dark hair had fallen over his stormy blue eyes, angry and bitter.

"Never ever hit her again."

Leanna fluffed her wings up suddenly, riding the flow back, alighting just a foot or two and gliding back, away from the elemental, but Brett stepped in towards her. His fists flew through the air. And, somehow, Leanna, Kathain, whoever she was, managed to avoid each and every blow.

It made sense, Nycole realized.

You couldn't battle Kathain, or any precognitive for that matter, using any matter of physical attack. In truth, even with attack, both metaphysical and physical, stood an equal chance of ruin at the hands of her. She could see any move of aggression against her and know exactly how to counter it.

Nycole reached out with her mind, snapping back at the void.

In truth, that was all Leanna was. Even as the assassin struck at Brett with her wings and her fists, hitting him sharply and soundly, Nycole saw the truth. Behind those fists, behind those wings and that warrior exterior, lay nothingness. There was nothing, just formless, shapeless, nothingness to Kathain. That was what bred Leanna. Void.

Leanna was perfect absence of emotions.

And Nycole? Nycole was an empath. And all empaths were the exact opposite of Leanna. They were filled with emotion, the feelings thoughts and pure souls of everyone, every living thing around them. Perfect Void and Perfect Soul. They were opposing forces to the universe, absolute in every aspect of the words.

Nycole lipped her lips in satisfaction. What else would two opposing forces do but cancel one another out? There was no other way, no other chance.

Even as the thought flickered into existence, flaring against her despair and hopelessness, Geoff threw his lot into the battle, allowing that startling crescendo of energy to come racing, cascading down. It splashed over them, a wave of pure electricity and life. The wave rushed through them, but only Leanna seemed unaffected, unaltered by it. She just whirled and struck back, with her fist. Geoff only just barely missed being slugged clean in the jaw.

The situation was too volatile.

Amon realized this too late, as Bear and Raven threw in their lot. He couldn't take this much longer, watching them continue without a conscious plan of action. The hunter had to take down Kathain, to control her and keep her from harm.

_Hunting the void. Chasing nothingness._

He leapt at her.

_Nycole hungered at the emotion, at the pure essence of life and everything. She drew it in and around her, wrapping it about her form. The empath waited for all of it to build, damming up the emotions the hundreds of thousands of Washington citizens within her._

Leanna growled. Actually growled. It was a feral sound, dark and ravenous, lusting for blood. Amon's blood. The girl whirled about with that sound, snarling with all the fierceness of a jungle cat. Amon's strong arm shot out.

_Brett. Angry, Hotheaded._

For a moment in time and space, Leanna's eyes seemed to soften, gazing out at him.

_Amon. Afraid, worried. Concerned for Kathain, lost somewhere within that shell of a human that was Leanna._

That briefest of moments of hesitation cost the assassin dearly. Amon managed to snag a hold of her wrist, locking his hand sharply around it and jerking her close to him. Leanna let out a breath with the swiftness of the motion, feeling her arm almost ripped from her socket by the sheer force of Amon's. She tried to pull away, but Amon just held tight, digging in with his heels into the ground, holding against her pulls. Leanna tugged fiercely against him.

_Sakaki. Losing control. Desire to act. Yearning to stop everything that was happening around him. _

Sure enough, the young, former hunter jumped into the fight with Amon, reaching out and clawing at the air for Leanna's other wrist. But the girl managed to buck and twist away from the man. His every attempt was evaded, but, somehow, Amon managed to retain his hold on the girl.

_Robin. Alone. Out of place. Confused. Conflicted. _

That last one startled Nycole. Robin had always seemed so adjusted, so used to everything that was happening around her. And, yet, these emotions, true and direct from her own heart and soul, betrayed the teenager. Robin was strong, yes, but she was confused. Her mind had been clouded by her time with the Thirteen, by the secrecy around them all.

"Kathain!" Amon begged of her, pleading for what lingered within to stop, to cease her struggles. "Listen to me…."

Leanna shook her head, loosening her hair with a trembling fall of copper locks. "No."

_And Nycole's own fear and trepidation added to the mix._

The telepath built everything up within her.

Leanna shirked hard to the side, but Amon remained with her the entire time. Brett swung around with a seemly harsh blow directed to the head, but the assassin slammed the other way, directly back towards Amon. Her eyes widened for a moment, as Leanna paused, already seeing the error of her actions. The former hunter took this to his advantage, hurling his body into hers and pinning Leanna to the ground.

"Get off of me," the assassin ordered through clenched teeth.

Amon shook his head slowly, sadly, as the girl writhed beneath him, as her wings stretched, trying desperately to throw Amon from off of her. "No."

"Yes…" She snarled bitterly.

Again, the usually solemn man replied with casual ferocity. "No."

Nycole took her chance. She rushed up, scrambling and tripping to Amon's side, to the tackled form of Leanna. The telepath rallied all of the emotions she had collected, pooling the pure energy around her hands. Nycole took a deep breath and placed her fingertips to Leanna's forehead. With a tremendous push, the empath forced everything she could feel, everything anyone could ever feel, down and through her arm, through her fingertips, and into Leanna.

Sakaki felt sick as he watched. Leanna arched her back out as the emotions flooded into her. The girl's eyes rolled back into her head, as her mouth opened with a silent scream. But, there were no tears, no shrieks. Nothing.

Nycole, however, jerked back, suddenly, falling.

"Nycole!"

xxxx

_Such fear._

"_Zaizen!"_

_Kathain's voice. She sounded so frightened, so horrifically terrified of the man, her entire body wracked with the terror of an uncertain fate. _

_His hand fell upon her hair, stroking the copper locks. Nycole could almost feel it. She could feel the weight of his hand, moving over her own scalp. The heat of his body brushed over hers, as though Nycole were in Kathain's position, strapped there, hanging upside down. In truth, for how much those leather cuffs cut into Kathain's wrists and ankles, they burnt at Nycole's. The empath could ever feel the strange contraption holding her friend's head in place._

_Kathain's heartbeats echoed in Nycole's mind. The empath couldn't hear anymore, couldn't bear to listen. She begged for the vision to stop, for the memory to just end. She watched in horror, crying, sobbing, and pleading the entire time._

"_Kathain…" Nycole whimpered._

_She watched as the steam rose up and off of Kathain, followed by a shriek of pure agony, of perfect suffering and sorrow. The scent of burning flesh stung at Nycole, an acrid, disgusting smell that turned the telepath's stomach. Kathain's burning flesh. With a sizzle and a mild plume of smoke rising from the base of her skull, they burned deeper and deeper. Each passing probe and touch sent a new scream piercing the air. To Nycole's utter horror, she realized then, that they had kept Kathain fully conscious and without any painkillers for the entire ordeal. They burnt out the very essence of Kathain with as little regard as one would brand a cow._

"_I'm so sorry, Kathain."_

_But there was nnothing Nycole could do."_

xxxx

"Let her up."

Sakaki jumped at the words; everyone else froze.

Robin just looked away. She would no longer watch, no longer be a part of this, none of this. Never again. This was not her world and not her fight.

Amon shook his head. "No. I can't."

Nycole put a hand on his shoulder, reassuring and comforting. "You have to."

"No."

"Amon…." The empath breathed.

The former hunter shrugged and eased his weight from off of Leanna, stepping back with his shoulders hunched, his head hung low. Surprisingly, however, the assassin did not run. Instead, the girl just stabbed the throwing knife from Brett into the ground, blade side down.

Leanna glanced upwards. "Thank-you."

But, somehow, Leanna didn't really sound grateful, and Nycole knew why. Along with her memories, with everything that was Kathain, Zaizen burnt out her emotions, eradicated anything that would stand against him, anything that was weak or human about her. Zaizen made his perfect little weapon, the weapon he couldn't get from Robin.

Leanna rose to leave, but Brett stepped into her path.

"You're not going anywhere, Kathain."

xxxx

Oh, nos.


	19. Passport

**TOUCHING GOD**

"You're not going anywhere, Kathain."

Leanna paused.

They kept calling her this Kathain person, this name that felt so utterly alien and completely foreign to her. And, yet, it screamed familiarity. Like a dream of a memory, or a memory of some faded dream. Absently, Leanna pondered who Kathain was, who she was to them that they hunted her so much. This person had to be important- and probably at least two shades of evil- for them to hunt her so.

A cold chill ran up her back. Leanna made mental note of it but ignored the sensation. Instead, she focused all her might upon Brett, the fire elemental. She spread her wings ever so slightly, trying to look bigger and badder than she really was. Leanna hoped to force the young man with the stormy blue eyes and black mop cut to back down through the force of sheer intimidation. Sensations such as fear or trepidation were unknown to Leanna and utterly unnecessary.

And, yet, Brett refused. He was Thirteen. Blood of the ancient legacy coursed through his veins, thick and rich with the ages. The elemental could face anything and, even if he died, come back in the long haul. Brett would not be threatened by a turncoat oracle.

"I'm not letting you go," Brett said sternly.

Leanna didn't respond. She didn't care. It didn't matter. There were too many reasons for her to argue, to fight, but, in truth, Leanna wanted to know the truth.

"Zaizen sent me to kill you. I'm letting you go," the girl whispered in his ear.

Geoff folded his arms across his chest, a sly smirk spreading across his face. "Funny, looks like we're letting you go."

"And we're not," Brett contested hotly.

Nycole shook her head. "We are."

"We're not."

The empath stood taller. "We are."

Brett looked down, shaking and trembling like a leaf, hanging his head. "We can't." He leveled a knowing gaze upon Leanna. "She knows too much."

Leanna turned her head, a predatory gaze flashing over her eyes, flickering there and dancing for a moment, lingering in the faintest of shadows behind her darkly blue irises. "You really want to stop me? Zaizen will hunt you down like dogs."

"You still know too much."

"No, she doesn't," Nycole argued in the assassin's stead. "Everything Kathain knew, it's all gone. Everything that was Kathain is gone. Nothing's left."

Brett balled his fist but stood. The empathy felt his mind quake as his body trembled. He couldn't let Kathain go. Not after all this. Not after they'd gotten so close. He couldn't just allow her to walk away. Brett squeezed his hands, digging his long fingernails into the flesh of his hand.

"She poses no threat to us, doesn't really want to harm us," Nycole argued.

Leanna just sniffed at the air. In truth, the empath didn't know if the assassin really would pose any real danger to them. She couldn't tell if their former friend, this creature without emotion, harbored any ill will towards the Thirteen. But, if Leanna did, if she felt even the slightest twinge of hatred or anger, they would know it. No. Leanna did what was required, and nothing more. Creatures without emotions had no aspirations.

"Let her go."

Brett glared at Leanna for a moment. "I… I…." His head dropped, gazing at his feet. "Go."

"What?" Geoff blurted out.

The fire elemental didn't lift his head. "Just get out of here, Kathain."

Leanna gave a small nod of acknowledgement and brushed past him. The scent of her filled Amon's nostrils as the girl passed. It was so utterly familiar and, yet, vaguely different from the unusual softly clean scent of her wings. Like vanilla blossoms, clean linens, and mellow hay, all mixed in one. And those feathers, how soft they were as the dainty things just ever so lightly graced his skin. The man had to hold his hand back from reaching out after her, fighting the urge as Leanna stepped silently beyond him.

"I will not hunt you anymore," Leanna breathed, the words falling shortly from her mouth and almost vanishing into the night. "I will not help you either. I will do what is needed of me."

Just when Amon thought he had quelled the longing in his fingers, he turned sharply on one heel and reached out suddenly, grabbing at air. It seemed for the faintest of seconds, the merest of heartbeats, that his fingers would find purchase on those wings, but Leanna arched her back out at just that moment. Her wings spread ever so slightly with the motion, with the sweetest of inhalations, before exploding out in a puff of snowy down. That was all that remained as she skulked off, into the night.

Robin knelt down, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. She reached out and gingerly took up out of those feathers. It felt so airy, so ethereal in her hand, almost non-existent. Just like Kathain.

"We can't let her go…." Amon argued. "We've come this far."

Nycole nodded slowly. "Kathain still has a part to play. It's just…. Who knows what part?" The empathy looked down. "Right now…. We just need to regroup."

"Regroup?" Brett shouted the word hotly. "What in the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The empathy shuddered. "We go back to Atlanta. Back to Markus."

Sierra waited.

She had been waiting for years, for centuries.

She had known her whole life, all of her lives, running back to the beginning.

Sierra was a patient soul.

She saw the faltering in the other Thirteen, where her lot held strong. The others wavered, bickering and arguing amongst themselves. Sierra could see it.

They could use this to their advantage.

The girl held her pendulum over the map, as it swung in long, languid circles. America stretched out beneath it, a glossy representation of the nation, laminated. Down in the corner, a cartoon mouse cheerily waved from it's spot, welcoming visitors to different historic sites across the nation, all depicted with their own characters. It was so macabre, but it was the only thing Sierrra had at the moment.

The pendulum gave a long, luscious swing.

Sierra whispered the word. "Thirteen."

The quartz crystal, a rounded sort of tear drop, seemed the sing and hum in response.

The girl uttered the word again. "Thirteen."

The crystal slowed, seeming to stall. And, then, it snapped to a city. Cartoons in huge, hoop skirts and others riding on horseback adorned the neighboring area. Sierra's lips curled into a knowing smile.

"Atlanta it is."

xxxx

The cards told him everything.

They showed Markus the failure of those who had once been so loyal and friendly to him. He knew they had lost the great Kathain Bowen. A good thing. It had been that traitorous bitch, that Oracle's foresight that had lost Markus the Warriors.

It was better without her.

It would bring them back.

xxxx

Dane had never been one for fiction. He always like books of truth, books of honest, open answers and of facts. The man lived for it, hungering for knowledge. He cracked open the pages of Stephen Hawkin for the four hundredth time that night.

Perhaps it was just something to the world.

He always enjoyed the rough and tough action films of the 1980's. His childhood was spent rooting for Arnold against the Predator, Sigourney Weaver against the aliens, and even Jason against all those stupid meat puppets that ended up his victims. No one should ever misunderstand that Dane didn't find amusement in fiction and especially in movies and books. But, still, there was something to the mysteries of the universe, of life, that attracted him to books on theoretical physics, science, and philosophy.

Somewhere in the corner of his room, a dusty, broken, battered copy of Machiavelli's The Price lay. It had been the first book that seemed to open Dane's eyes to philosophy. It was also the most prized book of his collection.

Dane didn't even know why he chose to leaf through the book again. It had been a long day at work, and an even loner night at the concert, setting up and playing. Being in the band, working a steady job, and doing side jobs all the time was taking a toll on his body. The man new it. He was young, perhaps only 23, and already his knee seemed to be shearing apart. His blood pressure had to be through the roof between running all over Atlanta during rush hour every day. The man should have been sleeping.

Even then, his eyelids drooped.

Sleep hunted him.

xxxx

_Thirteen._

_Ancient Glory._

_Ancient Evil._

_A voice._

_A distant star._

_A girl, lost in chaos._

xxxx

Dane surged back awake, covered in a cold sweat. His dreams so often raped and pillaged his own mind, leaving the man with little to no memory of what had just happened. It left but a welt, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"I hate it when that happens."

xxxx

The hotel felt cold and lonely.

Robin had a feeling it would. She packed silently, wordlessly. Fortunately, they had been careful, keeping just about everything in bags, always ready to flee at a moment's notice. It was part of being a fugitive, and, sadly, a part of life that Robin had grown so horribly accustomed to.

But not anymore.

She didn't need to be a part of this. This world of Amon's, these people, it was never meant for her. The teenager paused, giving a quick glance to the former hunter where he lay slumbering on a couch. He seemed so peaceful, and, yet, so utterly tense. His entire body screamed fear. This was not the man Robin had worked side by side at the STN-J with. This was an entirely different creature. Amon of the Thirteen. Robin didn't know what he was anymore.

Robin left, pausing to ease the door to the hotel room shut behind her with just a barely audible click. It thundered in her ears.

And in Kristo's.

"Where do you think you're going?" his voice bellowed, so close, but so distant in the shadows and the darkness of night.

Robin swallowed. "I have to leave."

"You, too?" the swordsman seemed to be teasing her, as a faint lilt echoed in his words.

The Craft user nodded. "This is his life, not mine. I'll only be holding him down."

"Are you sure?"

Robin looked down, not wanting to watch as the shadows pooled in front of her and Kristo stepped out onto the landing. "Please don't make this any harder than it already has to be…."

He didn't say another word. The shadow walker embraced her for but a moment, hugging her in his strong arms. Sometimes, from a person like Kristo, that was all you needed. Just a big hug, and simple silence to keep from going insane. And, just like that, he was gone, melting away into the black of his Craft.

And, just like that, Robin was gone, too.

xxxx

Departures….. well…. I have nothing to say at this moment. Anything I say will just be giving away plot. Ciao!


	20. Contact Spot

**TOUCHING GOD**

Peter Pans.

There can be no better drink for those looking to loose themselves in a sea of alcoholic absolution. Served in a large tumbler, the Peter pan consists of half the tumble full of Smirnoff 100 Proof Black Label Vodka, Sweet and Sour, Sprite, and a touch of Apple Pucker. Somewhere in there, amid all the intoxication and sweetness, lies bittersweet forgetfulness and a touch of amorous amnesia.

Screwdrivers.

What better friend for someone in pain, in need and sorrow? Both the Screwdriver and the Peter Pan flow so easily down the throat, with such a wonderfully searing sweetness that its drinker so often finds his or herself drunker than intended and far faster than anticipated. The alcohol burns it was faster, carried by the sugar of the orange or the Sweet and Sour mix, straight to the heart and the head. In no time, the drinker is floating high and feeling no pain, not a bit of it.

Guinness.

A loaf of bread in liquid form. Part sustenance, part absence, and whole-ly sinful.

They sat down the long bar, each with drinks in hand. None of them held the energy, nor the desire to even look up from their alcohol. Vodka. Tequila. Beer. Bourbon. Each had their poison of choice, resting on the tile counter top. Some sipped their drinks, rolling the liquid over their tongues and feeling the sickening sweetness of the liquors easing into their systems. Others just slammed back shots, squinting their eyes and contorting their faces in mild grimaces with each kick of the alcohol.

Nycole took the next, big shot, full to the brim with Jose Cuervo, pausing only to slam the glass down on the counter and turn in her bar stool. She trusted Jonas to slip her another shot in a few seconds. The bartender had been keeping all of them drowning their sorrows in a sea of alcoholic absolution, slipping them drinks under the table. Although, with how many of them there were, gathered all together and eating up valuable bar space, Nycole wondered how inconspicuous Jonas could be.

Even Amon and Sakaki sat with their own drinks of choice. Amon, sipping Bourbon on the rocks, and Sakaki nursing a round of Killians. Nycole had never pictured Amon as the drinking type, but, with the loss of Robin, the empath didn't blame him. Who knew where the girl had wandered off to, and what exactly was going on in her head? It didn't bode well.

And, then, there was Kristo, who sat silently, down at the corner of the bar, in a dark patch, sulking in the shadows. He had a secret. Nycole pondered what about, but she didn't care. They'd lost Kathain. They'd lost Robin. And, in the blink of an eye, everything seemed to have fallen apart. The only two girls Nycole had gotten close enough to call sisters had been ripped from her by time, fate, and destiny. She still felt an empty hole in her heart, deep and bruised.

Nycole glanced to the stage. They were playing again. They seemed to be a regular band, those rivetheads. Slamming on their guitar strings and screaming out a harsh melody. It was the same two she had seen earlier. Their auras glimmered and glowed mildly.

She would keep her secret, since Kristo didn't seem to be budging on his.

Amon silently wondered what would become of them as Nycole stared at the band. They were short one Oracle. An Oracle who knew what their destiny was, what the grand plan for the Thirteen remained. He took another sip of that liquid fire, feeling it flow into him and course through his veins.

Nycole could feel the bourbon in her own veins as though she drank it and not Amon. The empath shrugged it off, taking another deep drink of her tequila. She didn't care, couldn't care at all. Instead, she remained transfixed by the strangely blessed and cursed band members. The alcohol, and the bleariness conveyed by her mental connection to the others kept Nycole utterly amazed by their utter nonchalance and lack of notice. No one seemed to note the special features of the bassist and the singer, not even the Thirteen seated at the bar.

Perhaps it was the alcohol.

Yes. Yes it was. And that meant Nycole felt no pain, no reason, and no need for hesitation.

She had grown tired and weary of these games, these cat and mouse little chases. They were the Thirteen, and Nycole was Oracle to the Thirteen, Kathain or not. They were running out of time to this world, and, somehow, Nycole knew it.

The band was leaving the stage.

Nycole slammed back one last shot and made her move.

xxxx

The Thirteen were restless.

Sierra could feel it, in every fiber of her being, every inch of her body. Her very soul crawled. If it could, the girl wondered if her soul would just jump out and skitter away.

But, no.

She was strong. She had to be. For she was with them.

And, now, here they were, waiting for their bait, watching the crowds pass.

xxxx

"Leanna, you were supposed to kill them."

The girl gave a tired shrug of her shoulders. She had already heard this lecture at least a dozen times from Zaizen already. It was pointless and futile for the man to continue shouting at her even two or three days after the assassin allowed her quarry to leave unscathed.

The man rubbed his temples. "You were supposed to end them." He sighed. "Just tell me. And be very honest."

"There's no point to wasting my breath with lying," Leanna pointed out.

The man nodded slowly. "Good. Now. Why did you let them go?"

The girl shook her head. "There was no sense in killing them. They still have some purpose to serve."

It wasn't a lie. Not entirely. In truth, it was merely an omission of certain key details. Yes, in the long run, they still held some sort of purpose to the grand scheme of things. But Leanna wasn't going to let on what she knew of that. Not yet. Leanna knew better than to tip her hand to Zaizen. It gave her the advantage. The Thirteen, they knew her from before Leanna was Leanna. They knew her from the time she had been this mysterious alter-ego Kathain. They had answers to the questions Leanna needed to ask.

"And what purpose is that?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Again, not a total lie.

Zaizen looked primed and ready to strike for the kill. "Then find out."

Leanna gave a slight bow of her head. "That will be a little hard."

"Why?"

"They've left Washington."

xxxx

Robin spent the first day after leaving them completely lost and unsure of what to do. This entire time, the girl had followed loyally at Amon's side. She trusted in him, placed her life in his hands. But, now, she was a tiny boat lost in a vast sea.

And America was a very large, strange place to be lost. This country seemed so utterly different from both Japan and Italy. Everything was louder, faster, harsher, and angrier. Even the night its self felt hostile and aggressive, like a living creature. The world felt predatorial here, dark and hungry, hunting for her. It stalked Robin everywhere she went, everywhere the Craft user turned.

She felt so alone.

Some part of her missed Amon, even still, but he was not the person Robin had grown so close to and so utterly attached to.

Even there, in the Greyhound Bus Station, Robin could do nothing more than watch the people swirl around her. The Craft user knew nothing of these people, of this place. All she knew was one simple thing. She needed to get away from the Thirteen, get as far away as possible. And, at that moment, staring at the big board above her, looking at all the possible locations she could flee to, Robin felt just confused and tiny in the universe. A speck in a great cosmos.

"You look lost," a voice called from behind her.

Robin turned slowly. There, behind her, stood a strange girl. She looked and seemed so utterly like both Kathain and Nycole. Only shorter, with shortly cropped, blazing auburn hair. Those strands glinted flaming red under the fluorescent lights. Flashing, green eyes gazed out from a pale, pointed face, rather cat-like in appearance.

"Do you need help?" the girl inquired softly, with a slight elegance to her words.

Robin blinked. "No. I'm just trying to find my way."

The Craft user felt odd, invaded and mentally raped somehow. She didn't like it. The teenager turned her eyes to the big sign overhead, as if a clear way of showing her annoyance. Robin's fixed gaze seemed to hold the message "don't talk to me."

Still, the stranger persisted. "You see, I'm somewhat looking for my way, too." The girl stepped beside Robin. "My friends and I are."

A dark wave seemed to swell behind Robin.

Her eyes widened sharply. "Is there something I can do for you?"

A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder.

"You can lead us to the other Thirteen."

xxxx

Nycole staggered across the club.

She was drunk. Flat out drunk. Drunk like a fish. Drunk as a skunk. Blitzed. Bombed. However you wanted to say it, Nycole was it. A few too many shots and Peter Pans left her vision blurred and her sight on reality completely muddled. The world seemed to buck and wave underneath her feet, like the deck of a galleon, tossed among stormy seas.

The band seemed to be laughing and joking. How dare they have fun, these two? While they had been spending their days carefree-ly, the others had been on run for their lives. They lost a friend and more while these two just sat around playing music. It wasn't fair for them to be able to have such fun and freedom. No. They would be brought down to earth by her, humbled and leveled. And this was Nycole's place. It was her job to tell people who they were.

The bassist turned just in time to see her; Nycole grinned madly. "Evening, love."

"Evening," he returned the awkward greeting, his eyebrows furrowed.

Nycole laughed. "This is the most unlucky day of your life."

"What?"

The girl leaned close to him, tugging his black trench coat and drawing him close. "I know about you." Nycole sniffed him with both her nose and her mind, feeling his every sense, his every memory and thought. "I know about your dreams." Her mind reached out, coiling around his, and hunting for a name. "Dane."

"What the fuck?" he jumped back, terrified.

Nycole smiled sweetly, serenely. "I know you, Dane. I know more about you than anyone else. I know about your dreams. I know why you dream them. I know who you are."

"What the hell are you talking about?" the man demanded angrily.

The empath shrugged. "You are a Warrior. You play a part in a larger, far grander plan in the universe than to sit and play guitar all day." Her voice dropped low. "You see things in your dreams. You've seen the girl with the red hair. You've seen Kristo of the shadows. You know us just as well as we know you."

"Nycole!" Brett's voice.

She was running out of time; the girl rushed up close to Dane again, pressing her body close against his and slamming him into the wall lightly. "You know who you are, and who I am. You know how to find us." Nycole pressed with her mind. Drunken, it was hard to impress such thoughts and impregnate his mind so deeply. "Trust your dreams."

Even as he watched, Nycole jumped back, into the shadowy crowds of the Masquerade.

"What the hell was that?"

xxxx

Mergle?


	21. Nevermore

**TOUCHING GOD**

"_Who are you?" the girl asked of what looked like herself._

_She giggled and laughed, with a child's delight. "I am your counterpart."_

_So much was happening, all around them. Battle. Gunshots. Blood shed. There no was way to keep track over everything that was occurring around them. The entire world had fallen apart into entropy and cacophony. They were lost, and, yet, not lost at all. Nothing made any sense._

"_No…"_

xxxx

He was shaking, trembling, violently so.

"Dane…." Taylor's voice. It met his ears but sounded so distant, so far away. "C'mon, man. Snap out of it."

But he couldn't. Somehow, the man just couldn't shake the feeling, that eerie, pervasive, mentally raped sensation. Horror still held the bassist hostage. How could that drunk girl have known? How could she have had any idea of who he was or what? How could anyone have known about his dreams?

Taylor didn't even know….

How could this creature have had any clue?

xxxx

Cold.

Wet.

Liquid.

Suffocating.

Nycole didn't know what was the worst out of all those sensations. Perhaps in the was the drowning, lost feeling, separated from her body and from everything around her save the liquid that flowed over her body and bogged down her clothes. At that moment, Nycole could find nothing more annoying that struggling and fighting against clothes heavy with sopping water.

And hands.

There were hands, strong and locking around her arm.

Nycole snapped to clarity, prying at those hands. Those fingers gripped her upper arms harshly, holding her beneath the flowing water. The girl dug at those deathly clamped fingers, squeezing onto her arm.

Finally, they pulled her from under the torrential, drowning waves. A first burst of fresh, cool air rushed into her burnt chest, aching from a stark lack of oxygen. It felt so unbearably cold, peppering at her throat and the very flesh of her lungs. Yet, the chilling ice bore down so sweet and refreshingly. Nycole gasped at it, drawing in each breath with the same longing desire as babies did their first, stifling, hacking inhalation, taking in with each puff of air the same, deep sense of relief.

"Fucker!" Nycole struck out fiercely, lashing out upon whoever had dared hold her under, tearing away from those hands.

"You're welcome," Brett sarcastically teased. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Nycole ripped herself away from him. "Get away from me."

xxxx

Everything was falling into place, as everything was falling apart around her.

Robin could feel it in her heart and in her soul. A welt began to throb and ache on her heart, with the depth of the very purest of blows. A sting. The teenager hurt, deep within, for some reason. Amon. The Thirteen. They were in trouble. Everything was coming to pieces all around Robin.

And it stemmed from the Thirteen. And from this strange girl.

The interloper leaned close to Robin's ear. "You can't fight us. You can't get in our way. And you know it." This red head sang the words, practically chirping them with the harshest of venoms. "Our power is too great."

Robin felt a mild smile curve in her lips. This one was foolish. She didn't know who she spoke with. The girl had no idea the power lurking within Robin, the power of the Arcanum. Robin could take this creature down in a heartbeat without a second hand. This was just a petty, foolish child, playing with the purest and most deadly on fires. Robin had the upper hand.

"You wouldn't dare," the girl snarled suddenly. "Open your eyes and look around you."

Robin glanced about, her eyes scanned the bus station. All around her were so many people. So many witnesses who could turn her in at a moment's notice. With startling accounts of spontaneous combustion and several witnesses to back the stories up, Zaizen would have to investigate. He'd be there as soon as the American authorities were called in, acting through whatever far flung limb of Solomon that had long since penetrated and poisoned Washington D.C.

No. Not witnesses. Innocent bystanders. Potential victims. Robin gritted her teeth. She was no murderer, and the girl would not risk any innocent lives. The girl was a person, not a witch, not a murderer.

"See. You're too flawed to even strike back at me," the devil girl hummed. "Too… human and compassionate."

Robin blinked slightly, but understandingly. This haughty little bitch seemed to know more than anyone else could ever know of the Thirteen, more than maybe even Kathain and Nycole. The teenager had to find out more, and to know exactly what information this creature was concealing. Robin had to find out what this interloper had planned.

"Who are you?"

"I am Sierra," the girl replied.

Robin frowned, her lips pursing into a tight little scowl. "I didn't ask your name. I asked you who you are."

"I am the Oracle to the Thirteen."

xxxx

"No."

This couldn't happen. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the sequence of events that was meant to happen. This was all wrong.

Leanna glanced away. She couldn't watch any longer, not as Robin was confronted by this red head, this girl that, somehow, Leanna already knew who this person was. Somewhere, deep within her brain, locked away, remained the last bits and pieces to the puzzle that the assassin required. And this girl was one of them.

But, this was all wrong.

Leanna had been watching the whole time as Robin left the Thirteen. The assassin had followed with keen interest, in each and every footstep the teenage Craft user took, waltzing perhaps a hundred paces behind the deserter. The entire stroll from the hotel to the Greyhound, Robin held her head high, further intriguing the trailing assassin. It all unfolded precisely as Leanna had plotted. Robin would leave, get on a bus, and go far, far away, driven by her own heart and moral code of ethics. And she would be forgotten.

Leanna only need ensure this occurred as it needed to, without interruption. It was her job, no, her duty as an Oracle. And, so long as nothing happened out of the ordinary, these events would have naturally preceded.

But, then, these interlopers had to step in.

Leanna felt a shudder inside, an unusual, instinctive reaction of her body to the girl, to the red head who dared approach Robin. This creature bore a distinctively familiar gait and cockiness to her, a deep, dark knowledge seething about her very presence. This was someone who, down inside, Leanna felt she knew.

"No…" The assassin whispered the word to herself.

She allowed her mind to flow open and expand, to breach the very depths of time and the universe, to grace every tiny corner of the cosmos. Flowers bloomed. Babies cried. Blood spilt, and fire crackled. A smile traced across the curves of her face.

"This has to stop."

xxxx

"What do you want?"

Robin hammered on every word of that question, slamming it to the stranger, Sierra, with a touch of anger and pure rage. Rage of the witchcraft that lay within, eternal and never faltering.

Sierra shrugged, giving a slight chortle. "I want the other Thirteen dead."

Other Thirteen? Robin raised a curious eyebrow. In all her time with Geoff, Brett, Amon, and the Thirteen, she had never heard of such a thing. But, then again, she had only ever been aware of two Oracles, never three. This world of the Thirteen, of these dark magicks and arcane evil, remained alien and uncharted territory for the teenager.

"I want to see their evil quest ended. I want to see their unique brand of darkness banished," Sierra sang into her ear, purring with almost feline delight.

Evil? Robin gasped. Amon? Evil? Yes, he was brusque and curt, a very stern and hard to get close to fellow, but he had never shown any signs of evil. In truth, Amon did what he needed to do. The man never engaged in any purely evil or sinful tasks. His heart lay elsewhere, away from desire, lust, and destruction, in some unseen, frozen land. But, on the same token, Robin and even the Thirteen still had no clue as per the reasons for their gathering and acting as a whole.

All that remained with Kathain, with the Oracles.

With Sierra.

"Evil?" Robin whispered, breathing the forbidden word in a hushed voice.

Sierra nodded, drawing close, pressing something unseen and sharp, a knife perhaps, deep against Robin's side, twisting it slightly to illustrate the mere point of the matter. "This world and everything in it will come to an end."

Sierra was mad; she had to be. The Mad Queen herself.

"Let her pass."

Leanna's voice, strong and determined. Another Oracle. Another creature Robin couldn't trust. The situation was growing worse and worse. She had to end this, and end it now. The girl had grown tired of these petty games and sociopolitical bullshitting.

"Stop it," Robin growled.

The world exploded around her.

Time expanded, following in the wake of her growing holocaust. The flames burst out from Robin, licking and lapping at the world around them. Those red, and orange tongues of pure, liquid fire trailed around them. And, in the growing wake, came time. The world slowed, as heartbeats became death knolls, and each flame grew into a massive tidal wave, continuing out and into the world.

"Leanna!"

xxxx

Mmm…. I smell a fight scene. Hope you have a bag of marshmallows at the ready.


	22. Stay Puff

**TOUCHING GOD**

Webster's Dictionary defines fire as a rapid, persistent chemical change that releases heat and light and is accompanied by flames, especially exothermic oxidation of a combustible substance.

Such a truly clinical definition for something as uniquely beautiful and energetic as the flames themselves. That definition fails to capture the pureness of it, the stark flow of energy in waves and tongues. As the fire raced outward from her epicenter, Robin never so much appreciated just how much words cannot capture the true awe of fire. The girl herself had never gotten the chance to watch as her own tongues of flame licked through the air, each more elegantly curved and sinuously arching than the last.

Granted the sudden lengthening and extension of time around her, Robin finally had the opportunity to look so very closely to the flames of her heart, her Craft's inner fire. The swirling s-shapes and curlicues seemed to hold such infinitely delicate patterns, drawing her into the pale glow. Each singular flame held a bright orange light, with a burnished blue beneath it, luring her emerald eyes to the very heart of the fire.

Each singular flames seemed so vivid and perfect in its tiny, miniscule existence. They were each fairies, spirits, with lives and minds of their own. Each lathe of fire flickered into existence, lived its faint and short life, before sparking and birthing another touch of fire before dieing again and returning to nothing. Every death birthed a more beautifully unique and glorious sprite. Energy waved in and out.

Things passed languidly around the Craft user. The passersby turned slowly, at an agonizingly stunted speed. Their mouths morphed from the curved smiles of anxious tourists and the weary set lines of tired travelers into the surprised "o"s of shock and horror, pure and filled with nothing but terror.

Even Robin had become stuck in her own place, conscious of everything around her, but frozen in the moment.

The beating of hearts spread, as the cars speeding past outside came to a crawl. The only thing that didn't change, that didn't slow with the strangest of hushed darkness around everything, was the interloper, Sierra. The girl just laughed, each haughty exhalation booming and echoing into eternity. She just stepped forward, shaking her head in mild amusement.

"Ah, another Oracle shows her face," Sierra laughed.

Robin felt ripped forward, torn by some pull at her heart, tearing the girl from time. She felt hurtled forward through the very fabric of existence. The girl became accelerated, coming forward in time, to that moment, but her flames remained so terribly slow.

Leanna gave a slight nod of her head, as if in regard. "Oracle."

"Ah, supposed friend and kin." Sierra nodded, but there came no respect in the action at all, merely mockery. "So very astute."

"Robin…." The assassin whispered in an almost angry sounding voice.

The Craft user seemed to understand, gathering up herself and pooled her energy suddenly. The resounding outward explosion was devastating. Hiroshima unleashed. Robin herself had never felt such anger, such annoyance and pure energy pour forth from herself. It became liberated until Sierra just side-stepped out of the way.

"Oracle." Sierra chirped, pointing a finger into her chest.

Leanna leaned back, pushing Robin sharply before the resounding backlash of energy came at them. The assassin spun suddenly, grabbing at Robin's wrist and dragging the girl sharply. Robin let out a slight cry of surprise as Leanna hurled the Craft user forward and up into the air, slightly. She moved too fast for it to be natural.

Her eyes opened wide. A faint blue aura seemed to engulf her all around, and around Leanna. Kathain's Craft. The Oracle's powers lived on in Leanna, all around her, and the assassin was using it to their advantage. Leanna pushed Robin threw the air and through the very essence of time around them, accelerating the time around Robin. The teenage fire starter readied herself and threw as much of her inner fire as she could at Sierra.

Again, Sierra seemed to be ready for this, fully aware of what was to happen. The girl tucked and darted to the side, but, at the last minute, Robin changed direction of her fire. Those liquid flames just caught the Oracle's arm, singing her flesh a wonderfully charred, black color.

Sierra just cocked her head to one side, and gave a sly sort of grin. "Boys…."

They emerged as if from time itself, suddenly coming to life from their stifling slowly moving spots and becoming animate. It was like watching mannequins start to move about. Leanna spoke first, asking and, somehow, demanding without any emotion.

"Ready to party, Robin?"

xxxx

Marcus practically beamed.

"Ah, my prodigal children, coming home," he crooned again, from the doorframe, a strange glint in his eye. "Won't you come in."

Amon hadn't been quite sure what to expect when Kristo, Geoff, Brett, and the others took him "home." He half-hearted entered the two story, former colonial, with its autum orange paint heralding a different era. The house felt old, ages old, as if thousands of years had passed between those walls and the doorframes just as easily as they did in the moment of entry. The very weight of the place felt oppressive and dark, so much so that even the stoic Amon felt a mild shudder trembled through his muscles and seep into his core. Perhaps time its self collected there, pressing down on them, bearing down on their very souls.

The stairs went in two directions. Down and to the right to a sitting area with a large television. And up in front of them. In truth, neither option went very far, no more than five paces in each direction. But downstairs seemed so homey. The dripping wet Nycole, still damp from her involuntary shower, pushed past Amon before traipsing down the stairs and plopping down on the couch.

Something had irked her. Brett just gave a tired shrug and followed the others upstairs, to where Markus bade them enter, sighing as he went, "Better left alone."

Amon glanced down, to where the girl sat, sulking as the others pounded up the stairs. Nycole just sat, her knees drawn up to her chin. She chewed on her lip, almost bitterly so as the water ran down and off of her clothes, soaking onto the chair. A dog sat next to her, tan spotted on a white fur coat, and a noble face, but a mutt-bred never the less; it didn't seem to care. Nycole's blue eyes stared at the television as some cartoon played, but she wasn't watching. Instead, the empath stared through television, into the pixels and out of the universe.

"Nycole?" The name fell from his lips, tumbling out, unbidden.

Nycole just shook her head. "No. You go up."

Amon took a few steps down. From nowhere, kittens spilled out, crawling about his feet, and clamoring for shoelaces, mewing the whole time; the man picked one up, curiously. "What about you?"

"Don't you understand?" the girl asked stiffly and curtly.

Amon shook his head. "No…. what is it?"

Nycole abruptly rose and gathered up the kitten from his hands, cradling it against her chest protectively, as if she were some mother cat and Amon, some terrible predator. "They're gathering."

He could already hear the nervous laughter from upstairs.

"Nycole…."

The girl shook her head. "You're a Warrior, now. Chosen among the Chosen." Her breath, ever from the few feet away, blew hot and accusatory upon his cheek. "It is your duty. So leave me alone."

"I don't understand…" he shook his head.

"Amon, listen to me. I have lost my sister. My other sister is missing somewhere in the world, with who knows what following her." Nycole sighed heavily. "I'm an Oracle. I don't expect you to understand my means nor my goals." She fixed a harsh glare upon him. "But I do expect you to listen and leave me to grieve in my chosen way."

Suddenly, Amon saw her for what the girl thought she was, a curio, but felt her pain. "I miss both Robin and Kathain."

"Bullshit."

Alcohol remained on her breath, lingering between them on the air as Nycole drew close, suddenly, almost yelling in Amon's face. It had loosened her lips, but not her mind. The empath's mind remained as sharp as a tack. The former hunter hadn't quite been expecting this from the still damp girl.

"I loved them both," he finally whispered as cold as frost its self.

"Good, at least you'll get to be the honest one in the end," Nycole sarcastically noted in an ominous tone.

Amon looked down to the kittens as they scattered, as if shrouded by the same, foreboding sensation as he, bearing down and pressing over him like dark clouds, as Nycole's power engulfed him. "I always am."

"Go on," the red-head sniffed. "Court's almost in session."

Amon glanced to her. "Will you be alright?"

"When I mind my missing sister."

xxxx

There were Thirteen.

No, not just the group of them. They actually numbered thirteen strong, excluding Sierra herself. Leanna had been expecting them to be gathering, but not nearly this swiftly. And, yet, there they were. Men, all of them. Leanna knew they would be. She had known her whole life. She hurled herself at them. Not her physical being, but her mind, her spirit in all it's splendor.

Feathers fell upon the air.

Blood splattered.

Fire burned.

The air felt hot and alive, burning and scalding with each and every beat of their hearts, and the massive, driving beats of down feathers. Leanna cut threw them, slashing at them with a boot knife. The girl accelerated her every move, carrying her body swiftly and surely through the air. The girl whirled, with Robin at her back, casting forth her own flame.

But they weren't strong enough.

A quick, driving blow sent even the great Leanna, Oracle to the Thirteen, slamming to the ground, her feathers broken and bent, her form crumpling and defeated. Robin gasped in horror as a trickle of blood erupted from beneath those cotton white wings, accelerated through time and advanced faster than it should have, sped by Leanna's own Craft over Time ands its flow.

The girl leapt over Leanna. Friend of not, Robin would not let her be killed.

But there were just oo many….

xxxx

TROUBLE AFOOT! Danger! Oh my:::faints: … guess you'll just have to ait until I regain consciousness and pry my carcass off the floor.


	23. Moths

**TOUCHING GOD**

Sometimes, even the air hungers.

It did then, snapping and growling at Robin as she went, hissing in her ears as she moved. Or, was that the faint ringing that steadily grew? The Craft user wondered how long Leanna's control of time would be sustained, even if she were unconscious. And, if the assassin's hold of the very fabric of the universe wavered, what would happen to her, to the Other Thirteen?

She didn't know; in truth, the teenage witch couldn't have cared less.

Instead, she remained focused on Leanna, battered and beaten. Blood poured from her wings, staining those pure, snowy white feathers and pooling around her. It gushed, quickened and hastened by the young woman's Craft, Robin didn't have to get close to see the gashes, long and deep, running down the other's wings, cutting down to the white bone. Here and there lay chips and breaks, Robin noted and she reached down and grabbed Leanna sharply by the wrist.

"You will not die!"

xxxx

Something felt off.

A tremble of fear quivered through Amon. It was the first time he had felt such a thin in ages, but he didn't know why. There was no reason for it, no honest cause. He gave a quick glance to Nycole, still fuming at the innocent television and the cartoons blaring on it, hoping she hadn't noticed. Fortunately, the empath seemed engrossed in whatever show she so forcefully watched, ignoring Amon almost purposely.

He sighed and went to start up the stairs.

"Amon…"

Sakaki.

The former hunter turned to see his younger companion closing the front door behind himself. Haruto had gone scouting the property and outlying neighborhood for anything unusual, setting up a perimeter and ensuring their security for the moment. It seemed so standard and procedure, that the elder man hadn't thought anything of it until then.

"What is it?" Amon breathed.

"Whatever happens up there," Sakaki paused for a moment, as if unsure of exactly what to say. "Remember who you are." The younger man glanced to Nycole, almost sadly and disappointed. "You may be one of the Thirteen, but you are always Amon before anything else. Nothing can change that. Not if you don't let it."

Amon furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

Sakaki gave a quick wink. "Magic only holds power over those who give it power."

xxxx

How heavy she was.

Robin hadn't been expecting that as she reached down and hauled Leanna to her feet. Perhaps it was the muscle. Kathain had never been that strong, but she had trained the whole time the Oracle had been with the Thirteen, honing her reflexes and strength. Perhaps it was the fact that Leanna's body hung there like dead weight. Or, it could always just have been the wings.

Robin preferred that thought over any other, that it was the wings and not the looming unconsciousness in Leanna as she bled out all over the bus station floor.

"Stay with me, Leanna," The Craft User order.

The teenager gritted her teeth fiercely as she swung the two of them around, feeling a mild pang of sympathy for the limp form dangling slung over her shoulder. Her own arm felt wrenched and torn, shredding in the socket.

Sierra clapped softly. "A valiant effort, little witch, but all in vain."

A man stepped to the side of this newcomer Oracle. His hair hung long and black, a straight, slick ebony. A loathsome grin plastered his face, spreading from ear to ear with diabolical glee and rapture. His sneer only seemed to widen at Robin's surprise as a hole of shadows pooled beside him. A shadow walker. Another Kristo. The very worst thing she could have ever hoped to never face.

"Little pet," he whistled.

His hand tucked into the shadows, rifling about for a moment before retrieving the long, slender shaft of a gleaming, dark pole arm. Something seemed to crawl about the metal, twisting around it with an almost evil life to the very material of the weapon.

Robin shook her head. "No!"

A burst of flame exploded outward from around Robin, out, towards the other Thirteen. She had never felt the heat of her own Craft so close, so angry, so bitter. It burnt the untold rage of her fears for Amon and her vengeance for Kathain. It flickered within her witch's heart, as if the were awakening. Rage billowed within, a dark, deep volcano erupting to the surface. Liquid fire and molten rock boiled inside of her, begging to be unleashed on these enemies.

"No…"

xxxx

A sickly sweetness hung on the air.

Amon took up the steps with a heavy heart, ascending into darkness. But, somewhere in that void burnt a censer of incense, rich and thick. The curls of smoke twirled around him, mixing with the air and the very aura of his soul. The cloying bouquet perfumed the air with a nauseating strength. Amon's nose twisted at the mixture of smoldering Dragon's Blood and cinnamon.

In the darkness, Brett clapped his hands together swiftly in a faint mockery. Thousands of candles flashed to life, each burning a bright little flame in what had once been darkness. Now, the room became bathed in a pale, orange light, warm and mellow. Amon almost welcomed the scent of a thousand tiny flames over the terrible stench of incense. Vaguely, it reminded him of Robin.

He shook the thought away as his eyes surveyed the room. It was large, the obvious combination of what had been two separate rooms, a dining room and a den, at own point. He could still see the faintest of creases in the old ceiling where the two rooms had been divided. Chairs encircled the room, each of varying size and style, a random assortment collected over the years by god knew who, judging by the changing styles and colors. The others just milled about, talking with a silent language but daring not to speak a real word.

A cast iron cauldron sat on the floor, smoke rising from within. It was that rather innocuous seeming cauldron that had become the most reviled censer to Amon. Its smoke did something to the mind, eased it, yet made it sharp at the same time. He didn't like the effects, blinked, and tried to ignore it in favor of staring at the thousands of randomly assorted candles, long, short, pillar, brick, sculpted, tealight, and votive.

Markus strolled a casual circuit of the seeming baren floor, passing each of the men and giving them a silent regard in turn, before coming to a stop at the head of the room, the Northern point. There, sat two heavy, wooden chairs, old and carved, hand made ages ago by some hand long stilled by the weight of death. Their deep, cherry stain held the burnished glow of crimson under the light, as if fresh blood. It was in the left chair that Marcus sat.

Kristo gave a slight nod and gestured to the seats. He, in turn, took his place at the right hand of Marcus. The right hand man to the man who sat on the seeming throne.

The others found their own places. Amon noted how each seemed to remember so easily where they belong, moving instinctively to their own chairs and leaving the remainder empty for the Thirteen who had not been found yet. Even as Amon thought it, his own feet seemed to be carrying him to a place not more than four places to the left of Marcus, and beside Bear. The man beside him gave a slight nod of approval. Amon had chosen well, albeit a guess.

The others had taken their seats; all eyes fell upon Marcus. The man, however, just sat there for a moment, enjoying the power her held over these men, savoring his sway over the Thirteen.

Then, he spoke, slowly and deliberately. "We all know why you have been gathered here tonight."

Amon't didn't like the sinister tone in his voice.

"You're here to get back the King."

xxxx

The pole arm came at her, plunging through air, directly at Robin's nose. Yet, it did not ever get the opportunity to strike at her. As her flames billowed out, they slammed against something, some impenetrable wall, blocking out the spear head, too.

Robin glared. "Do not play games with me."

There was a deep-seated rage to her voice, low and angry, harsh and biting. It was the pain and suffering of centuries of witches who had been burned alive, drowned, or otherwise tortured to death. Their blood coursed through her veins, singing sweet power and energy. Her nerves flared, alive and itching. Energy, electric and flashing, snapped and popped through her body.

"Do not lay a hand on either of us," Robin ordered sharply.

The man at the end of the pole arm sneered; the swirls on the metal curled tighter, closer together, as if annoyed. "You think that can stop me with foolish, petty threats? Me?"

"No." Robin gasped at Leanna's voice, even and steady as she lifted her head. "But I can."

Time hurtled back into motion, as a sudden wind kicked up. Robin's arm tore as the muscles shredded, but, still her held on to Leanna, feeling the world slip away as time flew with a lightning spread she had never seen before. She was dragged backwards, the wind whistling in her ears, shreadding at her dress.

Behind them, she could hear Sierra cry out, "COWARDS!"

xxxx

They were gone.

And, to Sierra's horror, time had been restarted again, at the normal pace. Her weapons master's grin fell away as he gave a quick, bothered shake of his arm, throwing the spear back into the void. The motion was so swift, no human eye could catch it, but how could they miss the flash of light from Robin's bursts of Craft? They stared wide-eyed and in awe at the Thirteen, looking for the source of the sudden, blinding flash.

Her man ignored their awkward looks, striding up behind Sierra and growling in her ear almost inaudibly, "Should we follow them?"

"No need. We know exactly where they're going."

xxxx

Sorry for the delay. Life got in the way, and you know how that is. My most humble apologies. :bows deeply:


	24. Introspect Ratio

TOUCHING GOD 

_In the end, they were only travelers._

_We have always been but this. _

_Our quest will never come to an end, can never come to an end._

xxxx

Miho Karasuma laid the book down beside her, still shocked. It had been at least a week since they recovered that seeming innocuous, leather bound thing, with its intentionally yellowed pages covered in scrawled writing. It wore on her eyes to read those words. Kathain had been careful in her annotations and penmanship, yes, leaving not a single legibility issue; however, her all too elaborate doodles and sketches made the book difficult. Ornate dingbats interrupted the monologues here and there. Ancient weapons pierced the text and the mind in the same spot.

However, it wasn't the annoyance of the reading material that made Miho pause. No. It was the brutal emotion behind it, screaming out under each and every stroke of the black pen that had created this raw work.

All the violence. The suffering. The pain and sorrow. All stemming from this conflict, this unknown war. Miho still didn't quite understand it all, but she was only perhaps forty or fifty pages in on what had to be a five hundred page book. And the writing was rather small, jumbled together with the confusion of the writer.

"Do you…" Doujima looked away, unsure of what to say. She turned, instead to peer out the window at the glittering ocean passing beneath, letting the deep pondering drop. "What do you think we should bring back for Michael?"

Miho closed her eyes. "I don't know, Doujima…."

Michael had been bitterly left at the STN-J. He couldn't leave. Not now. He was far to valuable to them there, were his nimble fingers could unlock at least a few of the answers on his keyboard. That didn't mean the young hacker didn't resent Karasuma mildly for "abandoning" him.

Miho returned to the little book beside her.

"I don't know if we'll even be going back."

xxxx

_Once upon a time, there was once a great king. However, his throne was taken from him, stolen by an usurper. Now, that usurper sits upon the throne._

_There was once a prince with a crown of glowing metal and flame. His crown was robbed from him by fate, by death, and by regret. He had failed his position and his people. He had allowed the stinging poison of betrayal to eat away at his house, his clan, his people. His crown was stolen because of suppose crimes against his kin. He had to eradicate what he saw as a bastardization of the blood._

_The Prince will become a general, a leader. He will be a prince among men, no longer needing his crown of metal. His glory shall come from within._

_Once upon a time, there was peace in the lands. Great peace. So much so that warriors loafed about without a care in the world. They grew fat and lazy, blissful in the seemingly undying tranquility of the realm. However, that was long before the Prince ever came to be and ever came to power._

_Once upon a time, there was strength. Great strength in the People. Their minds were but unlocked doorways to distant realms and into the vast expanse of time. _

_Once upon a time, there were witches. And, then, there were the Thirteen, the first People of this world. They came before; they shall come after. It is through them that the world was created and that the world will be destroyed. It is only through the power of their blood, through the strength of their hearts and the will of their determination that true glory shall come unto any realm. _

_Once upon a time, someone began this story with "once upon a time."_

xxxx

It still haunted him.

Dane tried desperately with each passing minute to ignore the worlds that girl had said to him not too terribly long ago, not even hours ago, in fact.

"_This is the most unlucky day of your life."_

God, she had sounded so pleased with herself. Yes, she had been drunk, but there remained some sort of sick sadism as the words rolled off her tongue languidly and into his ears. There, they burned like embers, constantly reminding him, constantly tormenting him.

"_I know about your dreams. I know why you dream them. I know who you are."_

How could she?

"Dane, you ok? You still look paler than shit."

At any other time, Dane probably would have found some humor to the poor choice of simile, but he couldn't. Even as Taylor's hand touched his shoulder, the bassist found no comfort, no reassurance. Instead, he found only the cold, hard confusion and torture of a lost mind, a missing heart and soul.

"Dude, I don't think she's coming back. Don't worry," his friend pointed out.

"No. I need to find her."

xxxx

Wolves behaved better.

Amon sniffed the air, trying to ignore the bickering and squabbling all around him. As soon as Marcus had uttered the words, the argument broke out, spreading like wildfire. Only he, Kristo, and Jonas remained silent. Amon said nothing, for he wasn't entirely sure what to say. Kristo held his tongue as he sat by Marcus's side, ever faithful and trusting in the others around him to screw things up and need rescuing, or so it seemed by the pleasant smirk on his face. The shadow walker looked pleased that battle loomed on the horizon.

And Jonas? Jonas bore a smirk, too. Not necessarily a good one. His macabre little Cheshire Cat grin held smug satisfaction, as if to say, "I told you so."

Jonas had left the Thirteen to avoid this, warning them that the fighting, the anger, it would just keep spreading and following them. This, he cautioned, was what would lead them to ruin, time after time, again and again. The Thirteen were warriors, too proud and too stubborn to even give up the simplest of battles, whether it be over a valuable relic to keep from falling into the wrong hands or over the last French fry at the bottom of the bag. This would just keep happening to them. How could they ever hope to succeed?

Jonas, having seen this, just took the easy way out. His life would not be dictated by some stupid prophecy that he didn't believe in, nor would he sit and squabble with others over the same, stupid prophecy that, again, he didn't even believe in.

Marcus held his hands out, palms down, to quiet the warriors. "You will get back MY king."

xxxx

_When the last world ended, the first world began. That is the way it happened before. The last world closed like pages of a finished novel, opening the door to the next world. _

_That is the task of the original Thirteen. _

_We are the Rock upon which the foundation is laid._

_We are the Wall, braced upon the Rock, standing upright and proud, protective against the wind and waters._

_We are the Door, carved in the Wall, allowing those to pass through into the next world._

_We are the Lock, keeping those not meant to pass through forever trapped in the shadows._

_We are the Key, allowing the People to their promised land. _

_That is how the world ended and began. _

_That is how it shall happen again. _

_Soon._

xxxx

Karasuma rubbed her eyes. Prophecy. Lore. Mythology. Fact. Fiction. Truth. Beauty. Lies. Ugliness. It was blurring together into one, amorphous blend. The empath pitied Amon, but understood now. She could see why Amon had to leave, had to go with them.

This wasn't even her puzzle, and she, too, felt the driving need to finish it.

xxxx

_Up. Down. Truth, Beauty. Strange. Charm. _

_This world is going to end. _

_The Queen shall see fit to this._

_But first, she shall want her king back._

xxxx

Up. Down. Truth. Beauty. Strange. Charm.

There were little glyphs next to them. A language or sorts. Kathain had written something in faint scratch marks, it appeared. They stretched to the other side of the page and across the next. They were but etchings on the paper, carved and scraped by a blade of some kind, sharp but dull enough not to rip the paper.

Miho turned the book, letting the light catch the marks, but they remained indecipherable.

"Damn it."

xxxx

"That's it!"

Brett's fire burst outward, silencing any possible arguments. The Warriors grew silent, staring at him as he stood there, bathed in the pale, orange glow of the thousands of candles. They burnt brighter, flickering this way and that as his anger and rage fueled their tiny flames. No, not tiny now. For the little fires had grown. Or was that all Amon's imagination? He couldn't tell anymore.

"I have had enough." A strange, unearthly voice of authority bellowed forth from him.

Marcus's eyes gleamed and shone.

"I'm going to get him back," Brett snarled. It came out more as an order, a call to arms to join him in his quest.

"I'm going, too."

Amon didn't realize the words had been said until they were dead on the wind. It took him a moment longer, a moment of the others all staring at him to realize the words had come from his own lips.

Kristo rose. "Can't let you two go off and just get killed. Nycole would have my head."

xxxx

Graduation coming. I had to give you guys a holiday gift. I've been trying to finish this chappy since the middle of the quarter.

Happy Chrimmas and misc. holidays here.

For all those of a similar vein, may you have a peaceful and happy Yule.


	25. Espiritu Sanctu

TOUCHING GOD Flesh from my flesh. 

_Blood from my blood._

_Stewed together, brewed in one,_

_Given to the earth_

_As our Son._

_Time flows like a river and history repeats. _

_As shall the end shall become the beginning. Bring the circle to its completion. Bring the start to the end and the end to the start. Tie all binds into one and seal all doors with but one key remaining._

_Close the world. Open the next. _

xxxx

The words were making less sense now.

Things were growing more and more unraveled in the text. Even the script seemed to be falling away to nothingness, growing more and more scrawled and illegible with each line. Karasuma had to strain to even make out the words, let alone make any sense of what exactly had been written. In her delicate, light, airy letters, Miho had begun to make notations along the side of the pages, hoping to understand.

But, in the end, she knew the truth.

Up until that last day, Kathain had been falling apart inside. Yes, the precognitive had given up a good front, but the diary showed that the young one had been slowly burning away the last of her sanity.

It had happened to Miho once.

"Are you okay?" Doujima broke her thought before the memories could even resurface.

"Hmm.."

There was no answer to that, not really. Not with the things Karasuma already knew from the journal. The book spoke of the end of days, the end of everything, even of nothingness itself. What exactly could come after the end of both existence and void, Karasuma could not quite fathom.

The blonde went on. "We'll be landing in Atlanta shortly."

But Miho wasn't sure what to do from there on.

xxxx

"Should we say a prayer?"

Sakaki asked the words to no one as they watched Brett, Amon, and Kristo stalk up the driveway to the cars from the windows downstairs in the house. The still moist Nycole shrugged, her eyes locked upon the men's backs as they moved ever away from them, ever closer to their end.

"I don't know," the empathic whispered.

Haruto looked down. "Do you think they'll be coming back?"

"I know they will," Nycole replied almost instantly.

The former hunter gave a shake of his head. "I meant with the King or whoever it is they're going to go get."

Strong hands clamped down on both Nycole's and Sakaki's shoulders from behind; Marcus peered between them and through the windows, a perfectly delighted and satisfied looked plastered across his face. "They had better."

Nycole swatted off his hand and stormed off.

Marcus gave Sakaki a stern look. "They better."

xxxx

In old days, cemeteries were not meant to be places of mourning. No, in fact, the original record player was invented so that people could record their voices for their loved ones. The families of the deceased would be able to cart phonographs with them into cemeteries to go and picnic, all the while accompanied, in a manner of speaking and hearing, with their lost relatives and friends. The famous RCA dog from "His Master's Voice," ads was originally envisioned beside the casket of his departed master.

And yet, very few can find such joy in a cemetery. To so many, they are nothing more than places to grieve, to mourn, and to cry.

However, now, that place of death had become a sanctuary.

"How fitting," Robin Sena mused. "In an all too morbid way."

The little white markers around them seemed so pure, so bright under the line of the moon. There were hundreds upon thousands of them, stretching for as fall as they eye could see. Little ornamented them. Here and there were miniature American flags, fluttering in the mild breeze, snapping occasionally when the winds changed direction even subtly. Arlington National Cemetery. Even more fitting that Leanna should have deposited them there, of all places. A cemetery for fallen warriors and soldiers.

She turned to Leanna, to the warrior assassin, as the young woman worked at stripping off her shirt. How Leanna had managed to get them there, the teenage Craft User could only imagine. Yet Robin could not argue with the fact they were there. In fact, Robin couldn't complain at all since anywhere was better than in that damned Greyhound bus station, hunted by Sierra and the Other Thirteen. Her heart lifted at the thoughts of being safe from them, if only for a moment.

Yet, the sight of that alternate Kristo, if only in memory, caused Robin to shudder inwardly and outwardly. Robin drew in a breath, to say something to Leanna, to ask this woman before her about the shadow walker, about the Other Thirteen and their chances for survival, but the other spoke first.

"Do not fear them," Leanna murmured.

Robin raised an eyebrow. "How did you?"

"I may not be the woman you think I am, but I can still see the course and slow of time about me." The shirt fell to the ground, revealing, much to the younger girl's delight that the wounds were not so deep and that Leanna still bore a skin-tight, black, sleeveless body suit to wear about town. "I know your questions before they are uttered."

The keeper of the Arcanum nodded. "You are more powerful now than you were as Kathain."

Leanna prodded at a deep cut on her shoulder, not bothered by the action that should have caused her excruciating pain and immense torture, digging out the battered shard of a feather. "I am unencumbered by emotions. My mind is clear and focused. It allows the visions to come far more easily, while emotional interaction affects me not."

"You are…" Robin breathed.

But Leanna finished. "Touching God?"

The girl bit her lip. "Yes."

The once friend nodded slowly. "Your friend would have said that."

"He did say it," Robin pointed out, suddenly feeling defiant.

"He will say it again, to me."

Robin furrowed her eyebrows as Leanna stretched her muscles. The precognitive had been battered and beaten. Bruises marred her body, leaving dark brands here and there where the Other Thirteen's magic had dared to touch her. However, Leanna didn't seem to notice. That was where the Thirteen had failed so many times before. Robin understood now. Leanna. Her lack of emotions made her do what needed to be done, made her accomplish what was necessary. Not what she WANTED, but what was NEEDED.

"Do you have any spare change?" Robin asked softly.

Leanna glanced over her shoulder. "Thinking about making a call?"

"Not thinking about. Going to." The words were practically snarls.

"That's good," the oracle purred the words.

Robin froze, her blood running cold within her veins, sending a spike of icy frost down her spine and through each and every muscle in her body. "What…" Her nerves stood on end when Leanna didn't acknowledge her trembling question. "What's going to happen?"

"Three of your friends are about to make a terrible mistake."

xxxx

The miles slipped past silently, effortlessly. Each passing tree, each white line in the road bore another way marker as per how far they had driven away from the house, away from what had become their temporary sanctuary. The city had long since fallen away from them; the twinkling lights that hailed Atlanta in the dark sank beneath the horizon what seemed like ages ago. Even the terrain changed. What once had been nice, gently rolling hills became mountains and swamps about them.

Yet the highway and the silence remained the only constants.

Each mile marker that clicked away seemed to be an endlessly tolling death knoll for whatever lay ahead. Each line seemed an impure soul that had to be taken out of their way. Each shadowed tree became a haunting spirit, begging them to turn around.

"What exactly are we going to be getting?" Amon asked of Brett.

The fire elemental kept his stony gaze on the road. "The King."

"Then, who are we getting?" the former hunter tried again, stressing the words in a low, almost threateningly annoyed tone.

Kristo shook his head. "Just wait." He turned to Amon. "Just sit and wait."

xxxx

The phone rang.

Nycole jumped out of her skin, leaping out of her chair and turning stone still. The phone never rang at that house. No one of any importance knew the number. No one would dare call that house. No one HAD called that house in several years. At least, no one except for bill collectors. Everyone else of any importance knew better than to use the house phone, unless it was an utter emergency.

A cold chill ran up her spine.

Or was that still the dampness from being held under a shower to sober up? Nycole couldn't tell anymore. However, even Marcus, the stolid, manipulating, calculating Marcus, looked genuinely surprised and even taken aback by the ring.

_Maybe it was nothing. _Nycole thought, hoping beyond hope.

But the phone rang again.

Marcus reached over and picked it up, almost hesitant for once. "Hello?" There was a pause. "Why…. Yes…. Yes she is." His wide eyes glanced up to Nycole, to the empath frozen in place before him. "It's for you."

Nycole swallowed hard for a moment, trying to calm her rattled nerves. "This is me, that is you."

"NYCOLE!"

She almost fell over. "ROBIN!" Joy filled her heart to know the young Craft user was alive, yet alone in enough of one piece to be calling her. "Where are you?" Then, it hit her, the cold realization that the teenage girl had never been given that phone number. "Who are you with?"

"There's no time! Whatever you're planning it needs to be stopped!" Robin barked across the phone.

Nycole had to grab the phone with her other hand to keep from dropping it. "I can't…. they've already left."

Robin swore.

Nycole had never heard Robin swear before. In fact, the very thought of a profanity coming from those innocent lips seemed utterly alien and strange. It seemed…. Un-Robin-esque. At any other time, Nycole would have found her freshly born adjective hilarious, but, now, she just felt shock and horror. Her blood stopped, as thought quick-cement had been pumped into her heart. For Robin to allow such a word to spill forth….

"What's going on?" Nycole whispered fearfully.

"They're making a terrible mistake. They're going to give her everything she wants! They're going to destroy us all!" Robin was shouting frantically on the other end of the line, through the crackled static.

Nycole shook her head, tossling her loose, wet red locks. "Who?"

'The Queen."

Now, the empath's jaw dropped nearly right out of her head, yet a cool sense of responsible set in over Nycole like she had never felt before. "Tell me what we need to do, Robin."

"Get the Thirteen and get out of there!"

xxxx

Happy Yule.


	26. Surface Pressure

TOUCHING GOD

Everything came full circle.

It had been a long, strange few years, Kristo had to admit, grudgingly. At least three since he had last been in the mountains of Tennessee, since the mists had kissed his face and the sweet rains fallen gently upon his skin. It was all sentimental bullshit, he knew, but, strangely, the rain was a welcome change. It poured down refreshingly on his skin and trailing over Kristo's muscles, as if washing away the sins of the past.

"Cleanse the world," he whispered to the sky, to nothingness around him. "Cleanse the world of any minor trespasses incurred this eve, of any hints to intruders, and any lingering shadows of existence."

A prayer.

Amon had hardly ever heard any of these men, the Thirteen, utter even what sounded remotely like an affirmation of divinity, let alone a prayer. Or, perhaps, it was a mental note to self. For, as Kristo stared up, into the inky heavens above, letting the falling, heavy droplets of water plaster raven black locks of hair to his face and his ebony clothes to his skin, the shadow walker bore not the serene look of someone making his peace with God. No, instead, Kristo's features held the set look of someone who was about to take his peace from God, even if he had to do it fighting. Kristo merely ran through what needed to be done there.

A droplet fell into Amon's eye, blinding him momentarily.

"Don't let something so mundane take your concentration," Kristo hissed, drawing something from the shadows about them. The sakabatto; he meant not to kill, not to harm, unless driven to desperation.

Brett didn't lift his stony gaze for even a moment. "We don't have the time for that."

Amon watched curiously as Kristo drew forth a tonto and wakazashi from the shadows, their gleaming blades catching what little light remained around them in the darkness of the night. "We never have had the time for that." Kristo spoke the words evenly, coolly, slickly, as he handed the wakazashi to Brett, slipping it into the fire elemental's waiting hand. "We never will."

The tonto was handed to Amon, the weight reassuring within his hand. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, you fool," Kristo growled. "With the rain and all, we're at a disadvantage, down one man outside."

The former hunter nodded. The rain had come from nowhere, or so it seemed, rolling down off the mountains high just as they rolled into the small, sleepy town in Tennessee. The storm seemed freak to Amon, but, judging by the looks on Brett's and Kristo's faces, it happened regularly like that in that part of the world. The two seemed unphased, in fact by anything that occurred as they drove into town, as though the pair had frequented that area before. However, with the moisture, Amon doubted Brett would even get a spark off outside.

They turned to the building, lurking just beyond the trees.

"That's our target?" Amon inquired softly.

Brett nodded.

Kristo actually gave response. "Yes. That's the little slice of hell we're walking into."

"What is it? A prison?" Amon bade for more information, desperate to know more about their goal, about the traps that lay ahead.

"Worse."

xxxx

"You what?"

Robin screamed across the telephone lines as Nycole just stood there, shaking. "They left. I couldn't stop them."

There was a moment of silence, dark and foreboding. No one wanted to talk. Neither Robin nor Nycole. Bear and Raven just sat on the couch, their faces dark and gloomy. Sakaki preferred to stare at his feet, studying the intricate layer of dirt and stains in the "well loved" carpet beneath. And Marcus? He grinned a sadistic smile.

But, then, a voice broke the silence, even and almost disturbingly tranquil. "Nycole, listen to me and listen very carefully, for these words shall not be repeated."

"Kathain?"

The empath, in her hope, forgot for a moment, forgot about everything that had happened to them over the last few years. She forgot all about Japan, about the STN-J. Her mind loosened the last fragments of memory of the Solomon attack, of what she had seen in the assassin, Leanna, of the brutal torture and purging of Kathain's mind. It all slipped away, like so many grains of sand in a closing fist. The harder Nycole tried to hold tight to the reality of the situation, the easier it slipped away. A fish, a bar of soap. It was all the same.

"No." For once, Leanna didn't speak seemingly scolding words. "What was once Kathain is now Leanna. What was once weak and imperfect has been perfected. What was once fragile is now tempered." Her words were unwavering, cool and calculated. "You need to gather the Thirteen and leave Atlanta. The city is no longer safe for you. We will find Amon, Brett, Kristo, and the other. Robin and I shall meet them there."

"Where will we go?" Nycole breathed.

Leanna let out a breath, as if thinking. "It does not matter. You need to leave and go as far away as possible." She stopped, concentrating for a moment. "I will find you and yours when we can. I will bring them together." A strange sentiment hung over those last words, swirling darkly and bitterly in the back of Nycole's mind. "You know have the power to do so."

"I do."

Leanna paused. "So, do as you must. We are wasting precious time."

"I will," Nycole breathed.

"There is one last thing," the precognitive held on those words, drawing out their deeply ominous hinting, as if savoring the effect. "You must secret away all of the Thirteen. All of them, Nycole."

"I will."

xxxx

They strode silently, stalking together, like wolves on the prowl. They were wolves, afterall, proud warriors of the apocalypse. They took to the animals, to the furred, feathered, and clawed kin of man. The Thirteen looked to them for strength, for comfort, and for solace.

Amon had become no different.

Crawling within his heart, within his very mind and soul, Amon felt a lingering, dark beast. It was the dragon. No. It was the wolf. No. A lion. The hunter didn't know anymore. Whatever it was, it was the seat of his power, of his strength. It was the seed of darkness within him, and it was growing. Amon shied from that dark nature, shuddering to feel the itching of his wings, trying so desperately to be free.

Brett seemed to hard no troubles, as the three approached the front doors, walking up those marble steps, to let his feathers free. In a burst of energy, those wings exploded out from his back, dark black and long. The edges seemed sharp and honed, like those of a hawk or falcon. These were the wings of a predator. Heat radiated from them as darkness burned behind Brett's eyes. The smell of ozone seemed to ooze and leak from off those dark, glistening feathers, as water beat down upon them. The rain cascaded down, in sheets, guiding off the wings by channels between the feathers, splattering to the ground, while Brett remained dry.

Kristo pooled the shadows about him, not showing his wings, but drawing the darkness of the night about his very body and form. He might as well have sprouted wings with the downright evil effect it held. Kristo seemed very much of the night kind akin to demons and monsters. As did Brett. The two made the perfect pair.

And Amon?

Amon just walked behind them, a human among gods and demons. He would not give in to the dark temptation to let his power go, to feel the energy flow from his fingertips. No. Amon was stronger than that. Far stronger than that. He would not be like her.

Like his mother.

Brett threw open the door.

"Can I help..." the night watchman stopped suddenly, his eyes having lifted from the National Inquirer long enough to catch sight of those massive wings of Brett's as they flapped menacingly.

He didn't stand a chance. In an instant, Kristo leapt into the night, into the darkness its self. The watchman didn't even have the millisecond to trigger the alarm. Instead, as Brett swept in on him from the front, Kristo slipped out of the night behind him. A blade drew up to his throat, to the bare flesh. Amon felt a dark lusting building within at the thoughts as Kristo threatened the guard so with the killing side of the sakabatto, the reverse katanna.

"Shh..." Kristo hissed the syllable into the guard's ear before slipping back, into the night and vanishing from reality with his hostage.

Brett, meanwhile, leapt over the desk to the computer console before him. Nimble fingers flew over the keyboard. Amon let out a deep breath, feeling the blood lust leave him, his heart, and his mind. He instead, focused on the action, focused on what was happening around him as Brett went to searching computer files for something and as Kristo returning from the Abyss.

"Did you?" Amon whispered.

Kristo shook his head. "No. It would be a senseless killing of an innocent man. We have no beef with him. There's no need to create another body when no one will believe his story."

Amon breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

"God had nothing to do with it," Kristo snarled. "I just don't want to dirty the shadows with too many corpses, s'all."

The former hunter nodded.

Brett jumped up. "Got him."

xxxx

The Masquerade had emptied long ago.

Dane breathed a sigh of relief. The night had been long, weirdness withstanding, long enough to exhaust him. He had been tired, tired of waiting and wondering, tired of pondering who in the hell that girl was.

The phone rang on the bedside table as he plopped down on the mattress.

"Hey." Dane didn't have much energy for a greeting.

He didn't need much of a greeting, for it was Taylor on the other end of the line. The singer seemed far too chipper for five in the morning. "You doing any better?"

"Yeah."

Dane could almost see Taylor nodding in agreement at that. "What happened in there?"

"Got spooked, I guess."

The singer had to ask, "By what?"

"I don't know."

xxxx

Leanna shook her head.

Robin had come to recognize this as a bad sign, a very bad sign. For the assassin to show any waver, and hint of opinion on anything, it had to be bad. Thus, as the other hung up on the pay phone, the teenager kept her eyes on the Mall, scanning in all directions for any possible movement among the monuments, for any change in terrain or environment that would hint at the Other Thirteen's presence. Her Craft remained on edge and at the ready, ever vigilant.

"How are we going to get to them?" The younger red head inquired curiously.

"We borrow."

xxxx

"Move!"

They ran, thundering down corridors, as they moved in unison. The Thirteen. Perhaps something in their blood. Something made them synchronized, in tune with one another. Their hearts beat as one while there minds locked, focusing on one concise target, one solid goal. Amon drew in a deep breath. The air tasted acrid and smokey, like the flames themselves, but he ignored it. They were Thirteen, elite of the elite, and Chosen among the Chosen, with no time for such petty trifles as the three worked under the cover of night and in a very small time window.

His gaze shifted to Kristo. There seemed to be a faint smile lingering on the shadow walker's face. A recognition, a memory of some kind haunted there, like a shade on the warrior's form, hidden in ever subtle feature. There also hung a smug satisfaction in every little glance of Kristo's sweeping vision, checking to the left and to the right, but knowing nothing could ever stop them.

They whirled around a corner, just in time for Kristo to kick in a door with a swift, elegant motion, perfectly timed and utterly precise. They three burst into the room.

Amon's eyes went wide.

"What the hell?"

xxxx

I love Chrimmas. I hope you are enjoying your own, angst filled Chrimmas, thanks to the Thirteen and their misadventures.


	27. Turning Point

TOUCHING GOD

Atlanta.

Terminus.

Where old gods come to die, or so Miho Karasuma pondered based off of the rambling writings in Kathain's leather bound book. God, the last few pages had come to a terrifying frenzy of words and scrawled drawings. Who knew exactly what the girl had been trying to show through her words?

But it was the last page, the very last page, that disturbed Miho the worst, shaking the woman to the very core. She hadn't even the heart to show Doujima that last, scrawled, angry drawing, of layer upon layer of scribbled, black ink. Deep beneath that dark, foreboding texture, lay the detailed, overly drawn image of a tall, obsidian pyramid. Tall, piercing spires flanked the dark, evil looking thing, while a slit eye glared upon Miho menacingly, as if through the page its self. As soon as her eyes caught sight of that eye, as soon as she felt the sinister aggression as if leaking from the book, the empath slammed the leather bound thing shut and tied it securely with the strap.

No. It wasn't just the image. It was the words, beneath the image.

_'I am still here. I am still alive.'_

Those words seemed a message, as if specifically crafted for Miho Karasuma and no other. Perhaps they were the lost words of Kathain, begging to be saved from some Solomon holding facility? Or perhaps something far older spoke through Kathain as it seemed to speak through Sakaki at times.

_'This is the end of the journey.'_

Now, it was those words that spoke so horrifically to Karasuma, as if a menacing message from the eye its self.

"Where do we go from here?" Doujima asked softly, politely.

Miho shrugged. "We wait for a signal, I guess."

xxxx

"What the hell?"

Amon couldn't believe the sight before them.

They were out numbered, badly. No horrifically out numbered was more like it. For the three of them had gone foolishly running headfirst into danger without checking for any possible signs of a trap. And what clever trap if had been. For there, in the dark, were demons of untold evil. They were but three strong, while fourteen shadows stood before them.

"Welcome," a female voice crooned. "You are just in time."

Kristo's seeming satisfaction melted away, replaced by the same cool collection that always accompanied him before a battle. The sakabatto dropped from his hand, slipping back into the night its self as he crouched down low, shrinking back like a python recoiling to strike. The shadows rose to take up the weapon, cradling it back into the void.

A flash of flame burst into existence beside Amon; Brett spoke slowly, controlling his own rage. "Where is he?"

A sly figure slunk out of the shadows. A feminine form, dainty and curvy. One hand toyed with a stray lock, twirling it about her finger, while the other hand remained planted on her hip. She moved with a certain grace and elegance, haughty and proud. If a sense of darkness and desperation didn't ooze from her, any man might have found her sexy, seductive. But there remained something dark, ill boding and just down right sinister about this woman with copper hair to match Nycole's and Kathain's long tresses.

Amon glanced behind her. In the dark, thirteen other, larger forms stood at the ready, gleaming metal weapons in hand. The stood, sat, and leaned against, in what seem like perverse juxtaposition, furniture too small for a normal adult. This was the room of a child, or a teenager at the oldest. Judging by the blue walls and sheets, a boy. Amon's heart sank.

"I'm sure he's around here, somewhere," the woman sang.

Kristo drew the shadows around him suddenly, pooling and amassing the abyss into an almost concrete form, drawing forth his katanna, feeling the weight of the blade reassuringly. "Tell me where he is," the warrior demanded. When left unanswered, Kristo shouted, a dark threat ripped from his chest and throat. "Tell me where my brother is, you bitch!"

A brother? Amon almost fell flat on his back with shock. He had never heard Kristo even dare breath of his family, let alone a living sibling of any form. He had never heard the shadow walker seem so protective of anyone, so angrily enraged at the thoughts of losing something. The former hunter had never seen Kristo even really raise his voice ever.

"You should know..." a haunting voice chirped from the dark, a man.

One of the dark forms separated from the nothingness of the shadows, approaching slowly, as if dancing toward them on mocking steps. The darkness swirled over this newcomer, this menacing and all too deviant of creatures. It circled around the woman.

"Sierra had me put him in all too familiar of a spot for you," the newcomer taunted.

Kristo reached into the depths of the black about them and drew forth his shining katanna with a sudden aggression and bitterness. "Bring him back you sonovabitch!"

Brett threw Amon out of the way with a quick shove. "Get out of here, Amon."

"No."

Flames danced and fire flickered as the force of Brett's craft hurled Amon from the room, sending him crashing into the wall on the other side of the hall. The door slammed shut.

Brett's word echoed into the night.

"You have to. You have to go back and protect the others."

xxxx

_Fighting._

_Knights and warriors alike fought one another fiercely over the great King. They battled to save the man they swore fealty to. Their swords clanged together, slashing through the air and smashing against one another with sharp clangs. Shields blocked blows with harsh crashes. _

_They were battling._

_All but one. A woman. A woman with frail seeming fairy wings. Her back was turned to him, as she stared out over the battle field, surveying the carnage below. He could see the death and murder through the gossamer red wings, bathing the battlefield in an all too unusual shade of scarlet. Her straight, flashing red hair wavered in the breeze, wafting to and fro with each passing breath of frail wind. _

_She turned, facing him, tears running down her cheeks._

_"I am so very sorry." Her voice spoke of ages of sorrows and emotional torment._

_"For what?"_

_She closed her eyes. "You have to wake up now."_

_"What?"_

_The fairy before him closed her eyes slowly. "Your King calls to you."_

_"What the hell are you talking about?"_

_Her eyes snapped open, pouring forth a blinding white light from each of those sockets. "WAKE UP NOW."_

_"No!"_

_"Yes..."_

xxxx

"WAKE UP!"

Someone was shaking him, standing over him.

Dane blinked, awaking with a start and shaking loose the last remnants of the dream. Or so he thought. Because, there she was, in all reality. An angel or demon wrapped in human flesh and made real just for him. It was the fairy of his dream, only without the red wings. Everything else, however, was the same.

"Wake up," she ordered yet again.

"Wha..." The musician rubbed his head, glancing around only to see his room had been invaded. "Who are you?"

The girl gestured to herself. "I am Nycole. We've already met." It was the girl from the club, from the Masquerade, the drunk girl. "This is Haruto Sakaki, Marcus, Bear, Raven, and Geoff." Her arm swept in a wide arc, showing the men about them. "Bear, Raven, and Geoff are your brothers."

"I don't..." The bassist shook his head, running his fingers over the mild stubble that covered his head. "I don't have any brothers."

"They are your brothers in arms. They are Thirteen." She pressed a finger to his temple. "You are Thirteen."

And it all came back to him.

xxxx

No.

His mother shut him out.

Kathain shut him out.

Everyone he cared for, everything he longed to protect, Amon had been forced to let slip from his grasp. He would not lose the Brett, Kristo, and the King when they'd come this far.

He reached deep within himself.

'Merric.'

Amon looked for some semblance of the past life of him, some point of control over the power deep within. Instead, all the former hunter found was a building volcano of energy, towering over within him. It burnt a deep fire within. Electricity crackled, snapping over his nerves and driving across his flesh. Every inch of Amon stood on end, feeling the need to jump and act.

"I am coming, my King."

But the words seemed more a death knoll to his enemies.

xxxx

"Give me back my brother," Kristo snarled, gripping his katanna tightly, curling his fingers about the handle sharply.

The lady, if she could be called that, sauntered on the balls of her feet, shifting her weight back and forth on her hips, as if attempting to draw upon every bit of her seductive qualities to tame the beasts before her. "An Oracle never gives up her cards, not until after the reading is over."

Brett grit his teeth. "Who the hell are you, you crazy bitch?"

One of the others made a sudden motion forward, but stopped suddenly. The energy, however, continued with its own dark inertia, slammed into Brett's chest and knocking him back. His head thumped harshly against the wall with a sickening thud. Kristo tried not to look as his companion's body slipped to the ground limply.

Kristo, instead, focused his gaze on the woman. "Tell me your name."

"Sierra," she responded.

"Good." The shadow walker nodded. "Now I know who's ass I'll be kicking."

But he never had the chance.

xxxx

_Warriors._

_Knights from a distant age and place._

_Thirteen warriors, Chosen among the Chosen. Elite. Perfection and imperfection molded into the form of a select army of protectors and assassins._

_They were warriors, and they were his people._

_And he had a job to do._

xxxx

"Thirteen."

Dane whispered the word; Nycole nodded. "Yes. That's right."

He shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to," Sakaki replied; it had never made any sense to him.

The bassist glanced over to Nycole. "We have to go, don't we?"

"Yes," the empath responded almost sadly and somberly. "Unfortunately, we do. There are people looking for us, looking for you and all others of our kin." She swallowed hard. "It's not safe for you in Atlanta. Not anymore." Nycole glanced to Sakaki, who just nodded surely. "I'm so very sorry."

"You brought this to me?" Dane demanded harshly.

The young woman shook her head. "No." Nycole balled a fist bitterly. "We didn't. But that doesn't change the fact that you're not safe here anymore, and neither is your lead singer."

"Is this some kind of a joke?" Dane grabbed her and shook her fiercely.

"No, I wish it were," Nycole lamented.

"Oh, God. Taylor!"

xxxx

Amon rose, feeling the weight of his mantle bearing down upon him, but something light inside seemed to hold him aloft. It was the energy, within him. It bore the man up from his place on the floor. It bore him up from a place of disgrace and abandonment, from the closet in his mother's apartment, to this place where his power came to him in this time of need.

He approached the door slowly.

Ebony wings spread behind him. They were protective, eagle like. The feathers shook loose a tiny bit of dust out of his control, like an involuntary tremble.

Amon's fingers curled around the door knob.

It was locked.

"Open."

The command came out too forcefully.

Amon closed his eyes.

xxxx

Kristo charged, but he never had the chance to connect with any of the people around him. He never had the chance to do anything. The world exploded around him with a spray of wood splinters and particle board.

He felt a shadow fall behind him, moving forward.

"Welcome to the ball game, Amon."

xxxx

Oh, Amon grew some balls. I think we're in for trouble.


	28. Anachronist Anarchist

TOUCHING GOD

Car shopping.

It has always been the hallmark of societal and economic advancement within a 1900s to 2000s culture. There is no better way to say "I'm here" than to go home with a brand, spanking new, shining car.

That is, unless you've just purchased this new car with a brick.

Robin didn't like the look of the big, heavy rock resting in Leanna's hand. She also didn't really favor the faint look of contemplation within the assassin's eyes. As those blue orbs moved about, it was more than clear was the woman's motives were. Those eyes hungered for something, something special in particular.

Her hand rose suddenly, but Robin stayed it. "What are you doing?"

Leanna glanced down at the car window below. It was a sleekly trimmed thing, running in a nice streamline shape with the rest of the car. Her reflection played subtly on the gleaming blue metal below. A Nissan 350Z. Absently, the Craft user wondered if that was Kathain's preference or Leanna's.

"We need a vehicle."

Robin nodded. "Yes, but why something as conspicuous as this?"

"The owner has wealth. They can afford to lose a car such as this, or insurance will buy them a new one," Leanna coolly rationalized. "And we need a fast means of travel."

For however much Robin hated the thoughts of stealing, Leanna made perfectly logical sense. Still, there felt something intrinsically wrong with the idea of taking this perfect car. Somewhere, there was some poor person who would be coming back to nothing more than a pile of shattered glass and an empty parking space. The girl wished she knew who it was, wished he or she who owned this car was some terrible, vile, corrupt person who didn't deserve the riches they'd been granted. Yet, even then, it still felt horrifically wrong.

Robin reached out suddenly and connected with Leanna's slender wrist as the rock came hurtling down at the window, grabbing her arm sharply. Leanna flashed an inquisitive look, but the Craft user just waved a hand over the door handle, as the lock snapped open suddenly.

"We are going to return this car exactly how we got it."

xxxx

Finally.

Kristo had been waiting for some time for that moment. For many reasons. The first of which was so he could see his enemy, know his enemy. No. Not Solomon or Zaizen. While, in truth, that particular organization didn't strike the shadow walker's fancy, nor their leader for that matter, they were of lower consequence to the warrior. Zaizen would remain but a petty, weak, ignorant excuse for a man for his short lifetime while Kristo and the Thirteen would live again if deemed necessary by the Fates.

No, Kristo had been waiting for years, centuries it seemed, to lay eyes on the other Thirteen. It meant they were so very close to finishing things the right way this time around. Or, at the very least, they, his Thirteen, had come so close as to rile their enemies into such a brazen move.

He had wanted to study his opponents, to understand them and their weaknesses. Kristo had been wanting to lay his own eyes on these intruders and to know them, as intimately as each and every blade and weapon in his arsenal. His eyes remained trained upon them as curiously as ever as they just shifted weight and adjusted themselves, readying for battle. His gaze moved back and forth across them in long, sweeping scans.

The darkness welled within Kristo as a smug sort of satisfaction spread throughout his body. The man loathed this situation, this game of cat and mouse being played with his won brother, but he could not help but anticipate the battle.

His soul had waited many millennia for this day to come.

But Kristo had waited even longer for someone else to stand up as he did, for another soul to put up the same, protective force. He had been waiting for another member of the Thirteen to rise to the occasion as he had time and time before.

The shadows of the night and of the hearts of men began to crawl and move about, as if with their own, unique free will. They reached out for Kristo. Thin tendrils of the growing midnight around them curled about the shadow walker's body, as if in a protective, motherly gesture. Yes, for the night was his dark mother, and he was her dark child. It was as if all darkness in the world amassed around him and within him congealed into one, solid mass, pouring out from him into the universe around. That deep, dark, seething form crept across Kristo's muscles like a living armor.

However, another crawling mass of shadows stepped from the night, from the depths of that tiny room. That sniveling, sneering, teasing form that had taunted him earlier about his brother's whereabouts. It was him. Another shadow walker, another like Kristo. His counterpart.

Sierra just grinned a toothy grin, like some demonic little Cheshire cat. "You know, this looks strangely familiar."

Kristo lashed out first, moving forward with surprising speed. His hand reached into the void as he moved, drawing forth the energy of the night and all the creatures of the Moon's kingdom. His katanna, his weapon of slaughter, rose to meet Kristo's awaiting hand, as if carried atop a cresting wave of dark energy. His hand found the hilt so swiftly, so easily, catching it in an instant and slicing out, through the black of the void and towards his own counterpart.

Kristo had been right to strike out first, for as he parted the ebony wake of night, his counterpart moved just as swiftly, mirroring his moves. However, as this nightling reached into the depths of the abyss, he drew forth a flashing, shining spear, with crawling etchings and patterns on it. The metal of this blade lived, breathed.

Rumors had always circulated of weapons that had their own souls, their own hearts and lives of their own. As Kristo's katanna connected with that vile spear with a sharp rasping of metal on metal, the shadow walker drew so very close to the spearhead, Kristo could almost hear the whispers of the very steel the thing had been crafted from. The warrior allowed their secrets to pour into him, listening to their ancient, hissed song, admiring the skill of the blade's forge.

Meanwhile, Amon made his own move. His target became the temptress, Sierra. His hands reached out instinctively for her throat, finding purchase at the fabric of her shirt collar. However, a quick fist punched suddenly at Amon's cheek. However, the former hunter, to his own surprise, felt the shock wave of energy and slight wind from off his tight fist. He tucked out of the way, dragging sharply on whatever cloth his hand clutched.

"What the?" The enraged warrior of the Other Thirteen bellowed as Amon swirled around, before striking the other soundly in the jaw and knocking him back.

"Cute parlor trick," Sierra's voice teased haughtily.

Amon glared down at her, trying to ignore the Other Thirteen who dared stand up and go after his compatriot. "Where is he?" When Sierra just smiled a twisted, crooked grin, Amon gave her a fierce shake. "Where is he?"

There came a moment of strange realization that Amon had never so harshly attacked anyone to protect any other person, other than himself. There had been the attack on Solomon, both attacks on Solomon. However, really, Amon had never felt such deep rage directed at another person in order to save something. The hunter had never followed his instincts so greatly. Normally, Amon judged things cautiously, rationally, acting on sound contemplation as opposed to emotion. My, how times had changed.

And, yet, he also found himself surprised at the lack of concern when one of the Other Thirteen lunged forward towards him. Instead, he trusted, falling back and away from Sierra with a shallow exhalation. Feathers burst in front of him as Brett leapt into this new comer, sending the interloper crashing to the ground.

Sierra just cackled to herself, getting to her feet. "This is all fun, now. But we have what we want."

"No."

It came as a deep grunt from Kristo. It bellowed harshly from his lips in anger and rage, blurted suddenly and curtly. He whipped around, breaking away from the other shadow walker's engagement, and slamming towards Sierra, his blade slashing through the air.

While the other shadow walker moved to follow Kristo in that tight space, Amon rose up, bringing up his hand in a swift and elegant motion, trusting his actions, his instincts. A wave of energy emitted forth from him, sending his enemy staggering back, but only momentarily as a wave of shadows sprang forward at Amon. The dark crest fell upon him, beating down upon the former hunter as a storm swell, burying the man and throwing him to the ground.

His energy crested out.

Kristo pounced upon Sierra, but the woman only found this so much more to her own delight and amusement. "This is almost the way I had wanted my last encounter to go."

"Where is he?" the assassin growled the words like an animal.

"What encounter?" Amon belted it out as he ducked out of the way from a dark sweep of shadow and night, hurtling towards his head. "Tell us, Oracle."

Brett's eyes went wide as Kristo took Sierra by the neck and smashed her head down upon the ground with a thump. An Oracle. One of the three. There had always been three. There would always be three. Much as there had always been the Thirteen. They were the Fates, the Sisters Three, the Weird Sisters, the Furies, the Kindly Ones, the Nornin. They were Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld. No, not the busty beauties from _Ah! My Goddess_. These were powerful beings within the universe. Urd, the Past, the eldest of the three, the past, keeper of the well at the base of the tree of the world. Verdandi, the present. And Skuld, youngest, and most innocent of the three, the Future.

And Kristo had dared lay a hand upon one of them.

"TELL ME!"

Sierra laughed, gurgling up a bubble of spit and blood. "Tell you what? How I made an angel bleed tonight?"

Brett's jaw dropped in a wide O. An angel? One of the Thirteen, it had to be. Only another of the Thirteen would be so described, and would be enough of a threat to draw the attention of this creature before him. It had to be. Brett sent forth a burst of heat and cleansing flame into the world towards the one who dared to come after him, before jumping towards the fallen Oracle.

"What?" he demanded.

But Kristo ignored him, thumping the Oracle's head on the ground again. "Tell me!"

Brett grabbed the shadow walker's arm abruptly, squeezing tight. "Hold!" His glare turned to the woman. "What did you do?"

Sierra spat a wad of blood into Kristo's face. "She fell beneath us, crushed, just like you will be. Mark my words. You will fall like she fell."

"She?" Amon jumped in front of them, swinging his hand out violently, threateningly at the Other Thirteen, sending them dancing back and away from his compatriots, away from the scene there. "Who?"

"The other Oracle."

xxxx

MISCHIEF AFOOT!


	29. Renewal Taint

TOUCHING GOD

A knock at the door.

Unexpected company always had a tendency to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, long before twilight has even risen over the lands and waters of the world. Far before the night lifts her veil of darkness and casts a pale luminescence over all things, living and not, that is the most common time, it seemed, for visitors to drop by suddenly. Under a star studded with twinkling stars, like little diamonds cast across a velveteen cloth, they came walking.

In older times, on the holidays, the common folk were the most notorious for this. They would arrive, coming to carouse and make merry for the one time of the year they could pretend to be of an upper class standing. At other holidays, they would come singing, cheerful and delighted at the special occasion. Other times, they were merely seeking handouts from a charitable high society, ruled by fear of looking ungrateful and unkind by both their friends and by the religious class during a time of giving and love.

However, while this was not the time of year for that, somehow, Taylor Dawson had been expecting that knock. It had given him a bit of a start, a sudden rapping on his apartment door in the predawn hours, but the singer had been anticipating that event for years. Ever since he was a little boy, Taylor had been certain that day would come, when he would have to leave, unexpectedly, and most likely in the middle of the night. Thusly, the strange, inebriated woman at the Masquerade who had harassed Dane did not truly worry, nor confound the singer.

The one thing that did surprise him, despite the realization that this, in fact, was the day he had been waiting for, was, when he looked through the peephole, who stood on the other side of the door.

"Evening, Dane," Taylor greeted as the door creaked open slowly.

The bald bassist rubbed his head absentmindedly, stalling for a moment, gathering his thoughts and the appropriate words, feeling the growing stubble on his head. "You are never going to believe this..."

Taylor nodded and pulled his long, ebony hair back in a tight ponytail. "Hold that thought."

He turned back, heading back into the apartment. Dane quickly tucked in the door, following his friend and band mate down through the long hall, passing the kitchen and going into the light, cream living room. It caught the bassist off guard how quickly Taylor could navigate the organized chaos that was the little one bedroom apartment. The dark haired chap could tuck and dodge past the equipment and amps without even batting an eye, while the landscape, which shifted between every visit, it seemed to Dane, caused his friend to take pause before every obstacle. Dane held his breath as he caught up with Taylor at the hall closet, contemplating the correct way to say things.

"Look, I know this is going to be hard for me to say," Dane began.

Taylor shook his head, digging through the jumbled mess at the bottom of the closet, casting aside old clothes and storage boxes. "So just say it."

"There are..." the bassist swallowed, having only just been told the same thing.

Taylor gave a quick nod. "Yes... go on..."

Dane had enough of the closet searching. "Look at me, god damned it." Taylor glanced over his shoulder, a bit shocked at the sudden urgency, but not too terribly surprised, oddly enough. "Look, Taylor, I need to talk to you, with you."

"It's alright," he replied, turning back to the closet. "I already know."

"What?"

His friend's hand had found purchase on the item he so desperately sought and hauled a packed backpack from under everything. The thing was ancient and tired looking, a bit tattered. The hunter green fabric had faded here and there from wear, while other, discolored spots had obviously accidentally been bleached. Taylor held it out as if evidence of his knowledge of this event.

"I'm already ready to go," the singer announced.

Nycole rounded the corner into the room and looked down to the man at his knees in front of the closet, as if in some strange act of prostration. "Are you ready to go, my friend?"

Taylor bit his lip. "I've always been ready, physically. Mentally, not so sure."

"I understand." Dane watched in awe as the empath knelt beside his band mate; she placed a tender, seemingly understandingly caring hand upon Taylor's shoulder, as if aware of exactly what was needed. "I know, this is not an easy burden to bear, but it is yours to bear and no one else's."

Dane looked away. He had never been given such care and attention. Sakaki saw the unsure look in the bassist's eyes, but the former hunter couldn't say anything. He had fallen into things just as Dane had, just as Amon had, just as all of them had. However, it was not Sakaki's fate to serve destiny and live out predestined lives again and again until getting it right. The young man had merely been dragged along for the ride.

Nycole, meanwhile, felt the tenor of Dane's spirit change. "Both of you-" she called forth their names, extracting the information from their minds with little effort. "Dane and Taylor, both of you have been given what is both a wonderful and a terrible gift which cannot be returned. Both of you have been touched by Fate and Destiny, marked to live this life and to perform certain acts."

Taylor closed his eyes slowly. "I know."

Nycole smiled softly. "You have always known."

xxxx

"What did you do?"

Brett barked the words at Sierra, demanding an answer and commanding authority over any who dared cross his. He was, after all, Thirteen. He was blessed and cursed, given all the power necessary to do what Destiny beckoned him to do.

Sierra grinned coyly. "I beat the bloody pulp out of her." She gave a toss of her head to the Other Thirteen. "I gave her exactly what she deserved, what she had been begging for." Evil flashed through her eyes with seeming life and vigor of all the demons of the universe congealed into one. "I sent my Thirteen down upon them, let them do whatever they wanted to her."

One of the Other Thirteen cast forth a wave of fire, hot tongues of flame, licking towards these three. Amon felt his own energy, his inner spirit rise forth to meet the flame. However, he merely smacked it back towards the source, the origin, like a batter at the plate. The action seemed so natural, so practiced and ready.

"Who?" Amon questioned curtly.

Sierra hissed through her teeth. "The other Oracle."

"Nycole..." Amon breathed.

Kristo shook his head, giving a break in his hold of Sierra just long enough to backhand the giggling girl. It was not in Kristo to willingly strike a girl, unless absolutely necessary. In this case, it was. He needed the truth, the whole truth, not these games and riddles the Oracle played.

"No. It can't be. We left her safe," Kristo snarled directly in Sierra's face. "And even if they did manage to find her, the others would have kept her safe. They'd die for her if they had to." He glowered over her. "It's a lie."

"Leanna..." Amon breathed the word, sadly, solemnly, like a death knoll.

Kristo, enraged, moved in less that a heartbeat. With the speed of the hummingbird, he hauled Sierra to her feet and hurled her at the Other Thirteen, knocking a few of them down as they caught the falling Oracle. Their Oracle. For Sierra, while her greed, bloodlust and malice, could never, ever give caution to his fellow Warriors. His hands shot out, grabbing at both Brett and Amon, dragging them with him as he plummeting into the abyss.

Yet they did not fall. The void reached out and cradled its master, Kristo, and his companions as they slipped into the nothingness about them.

"Brother..."

xxxx

They were on the move in an instant, running, fleeing, escaping from the city of Atlanta and its suburbs. There seemed a cool calculation to how everything was happening, to what was being done. It was as if everyone knew their own place, their own distinctive task to accomplish to make this small evacuation work.

Nycole felt her heartstrings tug as something pulled at her with grave intent. Something from the far North. The empath didn't want to think about it, didn't want to hurt anymore, wondering if this was the end of one of her Thirteen, her beloved Warriors. She felt torn, as if dragged off by someone's callous hatred and terrifying rag, pulled to the North by some unseen force.

"Be safe."

She whispered the silent prayer to the sky as the stars slowly drifted overhead.

"Please..."

xxxx

"Oz."

Kristo drew forth the thought with determination. He called upon each and every memory of his brother, his poor, innocent younger brother.

Being younger and setting off fireworks. They had grown up together, separated by a little over ten years of age. As soon as the younger Kristo had been able to convince his mother to let them, he showed his little brother sparklers and, then, with great relish, fire crackers. He felt such fatherly delight at his brother's claps. Kristo himself, had only been fifteen or sixteen at the time. Kristo could still see the little boy running across the damp, summer grass, a sparkler in each hand, as a dash of glitter trailed being him in small streams of light.

No luck.

He closed his eyes tighter, focusing harder.

He drew upon the last memory he had of his brother, or, at least, of seeing his brother face to face. Yes, there had been phone calls and pictures sent back and forth, but Kristo had been forbidden, by both Fate and the Tennessee Department of Child and Family Services from seeing his brother.

However, before that, they had lived together, up until Kristo went into the military. That last day together, Oz had been heartbroken. His elder tried hard to keep his younger sibling calm and happy. This was a day to be merry. Kristo was, in essence, going off on what would really be like an extended training session for his true calling. However, Kristo could not, in any sense of the word "ethically," divulge that tidbit to such an innocent, young boy. Kristo left his brother with a pat on the head and a playful tossle of Oz's blonde hair, telling him to worry not, and hoping that a day would not come any time soon when he would have to suddenly tell Oz of everything.

Kristo could still see the look of deep sadness in his brother's eyes, yet he could not quite find Oz. They had hidden his own brother well within Kristo's chosen kingdom of shadows and night.

"Damn you."

xxxx

"How much farther?"

Robin hated asking the question, but, somehow, deep inside, she couldn't bear to continue just riding in the passenger seat beside Leanna as the woman sped down the long, lonely highway through the night. Amon had always been so detailed, so precise, while Leanna remained only impartial and silent. Her silence spoke volumes of her cool seeming disdain. Or was it just like Amon? That Leanna merely had nothing to say instead of wasting her time on petty small talk and chatter.

Leanna dipped her head slightly. "Washington to Atlanta is approximately 12 hours following appropriate speed limits and state driving statutes."

"We aren't..." Robin whispered, tucking her knees up beneath her chin.

"No," the assassin allowed the word to slip from her lips almost absently. "No, we are not."

"Then, how long?" the teenager asked again.

"I do not know."

xxxx

The abyss, the void, for it had many names, went on for time immemorial. The vast nothingness of the shadow and night went on forever, into infinity, and beyond, for all intensive purposes. Humans so often like to think of the universe as such, but nothing, not anything, is anywhere near as vast as the abyss that Kristo could fall into at a moment's notice.

Oz could have been anywhere in there. Anywhere. In any place in that dark nothingness.

Kristo screamed out, calling to him. "OZ!"

And there came a faint answer, a whisper of sorts, carried on a breath of air and the sweetly indulgent scent of midnight intoxication.

"Oz!" He called again.

Another soft reply hung about the wind. "Brother..."

"OZ!" Brett shouted, hunting this way and that, looking for their lost KIng.

"HERE!"

And, there he was. Amon almost jumped out of his skin at the sight of this, their King for all ages and lives. The man couldn't believe his eyes. It was nothing more than a mere boy, no older than Robin, maybe 15 at the oldest, the utmost oldest. His sandy blonde hair hung in a slight bob cut, falling gently across pale, fresh skin, so innocent and unmarred by time. His eyes were of the palest, softest blue, an almost unnatural cerulean with sharp, teal highlights. This boy heralded the image of youthful innocence and peace.

"Oz..." Brett breathed.

However, to Amon's dismay, Kristo's reaction remained far more calm and collected. He gave a nod, reaching out with both his mind and his arm. The shadow walker's fingertips caught, brushing against his own brother's skin before taking hold of Oz's hand.

"Let's go."

xxxx

Aha. If I were a smartass, I would make a LOTR reference her in pun.


	30. Midnight Waltz

TOUCHING GOD

The king had returned.

He walked among them now, as one of them, mortal in all ways. His being, his spirit, was now wrapped in human flesh, bound by sinew and muscle, clad in new skin, fresh as the spring day. He sat with the Warriors, HIS warriors, wedged between two of them, protected by them. They would gladly given of their flesh and life so that he might remain in this world of the living, now that the King had been returned to it.

They drove like mad, running from that place, from that "children's home." Brett sped away, running as fast as he could, pouring on speed and energy with no care for the laws of the road. The fire elemental just kept on speeding away, moving as fast as he could from the scene of this, in what the DCFS would term, abduction.

"What the hell was that?" Oz swore.

Kristo just grabbed a hold of his own brother's head and shoved it down, out of sight. "Just keep down."

"But what was that?" his brother demanded again.

Amon glanced to Brett as he peeled out of the parking lot, skidding onto the main road with an angry squeal of tires. "What does he know?"

"What am I supposed to know?" Oz was shouting now, popping his head up.

Kristo forced his brother's head back down, bitter and raging annoyed at Oz's general lack of disregard for his own safety. "You're supposed to know to stay down and do what I tell you to do."

"He doesn't know anything, does he?" Amon breathed softly.

Brett shook his head. "No. He doesn't."

"What are you talking about?" Oz had grown almost deathly silent. "What don't I know? What am I supposed to know?"

"Keep driving," Kristo barked the order to his comrade.

"Brother?"

Kristo shook his head. "Not yet."

xxxx

The blood of so many had been spilt there.

And all she wanted was for someone to save her. Or, at least, that's what Nycole thought she wanted. The empath had no idea. Not anymore. And, in a way, she wondered what the Thirteen wanted, now that she had tapped them and pointed each of those Warriors onto their destined path. The doubts in her head, Nycole knew they weren't hers, but she couldn't help but feel the need to be saved and rescued from everything in the world, from the vile and hateful things on the planet.

But it was Dane.

Nycole shuddered at the thoughts. He wanted to be saved from them, in essence. The bassist hadn't wanted it. As the girl carefully explained to both of them their destiny, Taylor had just been understanding, while Dane sat, questioning fate over free will.

She turned, facing the mountain and those forms carved into it.

"Y'think she'll know to find us here?" Geoff inquired.

Nycole had to laugh. "Kathain always knew I was a bit melodramatic." The girl paused, swallowing hard. "Leanna'll find us."

"What is it?" Dane pressed.

The empath shook her head, but the tears had already welled up and spilt down her checks in big, rolling droplets, glittering under the streetlights like the stars in the sky. "It's nothing." However, as if to the prove the point, Dane's hand reached out and brushed away a tear. "It's just... we've already lost one of our own."

He stopped. "So this is really real?"

"It always was."

Dane missed Nycole the way he originally met her. He liked the bitchy, annoyed, annoying drunk girl who had staggered and swaggered about him at the Masquerade. He liked that version better. Anything was better than getting to know the real thing, this sad, haunted, tortured creature that held the key to his destiny and sealed his fate to an uncertain end. Anything was better than learning the truth.

He turned to the mountain behind, to the gleaming, polished faces carved into the ancient granite, almost afraid for a moment. However, Nycole didn't feel phased.

"They'll find us."

xxxx

The house was dark.

Too dark.

They had left the others there. Marcus.That calculating seeming leader of them all, always with some seeming scheme behind everything. Bear. With his ever constant smile, always seeing some light in even the darkest of situations. Raven. He who always seemed able to make some small joke or mild pun, always trying to lighten and lift the others no matter how far they slipped. Geoff. The sworn protector of all those who were the Thirteen, as well as their poor Oracles. Sakaki. The man who had just fallen into all this quite by accident.

And, then, Nycole. Poor, sweet Nycole. They had left the empath, still sobering up from the night at the Masquerade. They had left her there, in the trust of the other Thirteen. She, just as Sakaki, seemed to have fallen into the entire mess quite by accident and circumstance, as opposed to choice.

"And so the book says, 'we may be through with the past,'" Brett breathed, hunching over the steering wheel and peering out at the dark Roswell house. "But the past ain't fucking through with us."

Amon barely raised an eyebrow. "This does look startlingly familiar."

Kristo shifted his gaze uncertainly across the backseat of the car, glancing across the property, hunting for any little details to show the tiniest clue to a fight, a battle, or an invasion of any kind into their safe haven. There were none, not a damn sign of Solomon or the Other Thirteen. At least, nothing that even the trained Warrior's eyes could distinguish, even with all of his years of practice and keen, sharpened skills. There was nothing.

"Too familiar." The shadow walker paused, feeling the Night and all her creatures looming around them. "But it's not a trap."

"Do we go in?" Brett inquired curiously.

Kristo gave a slow nod. "We have no other choice." He toyed with the night, with the shadows and everything about. "We go in."

"Alright." Oz spoke excitedly, clapping his hands together.

His brother gave a dark glare, stern and sharp, authoritative. "No. You're not going anywhere. You're going to stay here, safe in the car. Brett, you keep an eye on him. Anything happens-"

"I know what to do," the fire elemental replied.

Kristo glanced to Amon. "C'mon."

They slunk from the car and down the sloping hill to the front door of that house that had always been their sanctuary. Their foot steps tread softly upon the grass damp with night dew. Amon almost tripped over a deep rut in the middle of the yard. Kristo, however, remembering the time the entire group banding together to dig the trench there, searching for where the water main had frozen and burst. The shadow walker lilted easily up to the front door.

Amon, instinctively tucked beside the door to one side, while Kristo pressed an ear to the wooden thing. He held up a fist, the signal to hold. Then, the shadow walker put a pointed finger to his ear; he could hear something. Amon nodded. Kristo held up two fingers; two people were in the house. Again, Amon merely nodded.

The shadows pooled together around the two.

Kristo held up three fingers.

Amon breathed in.

Two fingers.

He turned swiftly on the ball of his feet, his dark eyes focused on Kristo's fingers.

One finger.

Amon exhaled, and, just as Kristo gave a quick point at the front door, the former hunter elephant kicked the wooden thing hard, slamming it in, breaking the lock clean in with a spray of splinters. Kristo wheeled into the house, his fists balled, up and ready for a fight.

There never came any.

"Took you long enough."

Amon looked up the stairs, to where the Thirteen had met and gathered. Up there, at the very top, stood two visions of beauty and hope. Robin, in all her glory, a small flare of fire atop her hand, illuminating her smiling face. And, beside her, in all black, was Leanna, that ghost of Kathain, giving a slight nod of greeting to the men before them.

The shadow walker bound up the steps. "You're here."

Robin nodded slowly. "We had to stop you from making a terrible mistake." She glanced around. "We have to stop you from going to get the King."

"It's too late," Amon responded solemnly.

The young Craft user gasped and turned away, shaking her head gravely. "You didn't." She rubbed her head, unsure of what to say or do. "You couldn't have." She gave a slight, awkward laugh. "Of course you would. You would have to. You always have to save people, even from themselves."

Kristo held out a hand to Leanna and shook it formally. "Welcome back."

The precognitive closed her eyes. "We need to leave."

Robin nodded. "Now."

"Where do we go?" Amon inquired of the two.

Leanna lifted her gaze. "I know."

xxxx

Stone Mountain.

In ancient times, Indians lived in the shadow of the mountain, that giant granite rock in the middle of the woods. They took chunks of granite from the base of the massive boulder for their tools and building supplies. They used the site as a guide post and as a sanctuary for their people. At least they did until the first colonial settlers came to the area, driving off the native people.

Then, the white plantations rose about the great rock mountain. Cotton, tobacco, and other crops sprung up in great fields. There was even a smart, stately manor at the base of the mountain, right beside a beautiful lake. At times, the owners of the manor would take hikes to the top of the mountain and admire the view, seeing for miles and miles on a clear day.

Then, war broke out. The manors burnt. The plantations fell. And, yet, Stone Mountain stood proud and tall, outlasting all, everlasting.

Years later, the City of Atlanta would come to recognize the suffering of all those who had died in the war. A great sculpture was planned, taking years to complete only a small portion of the anticipated art piece. Three generals now rode on horseback across the face of the wall in a massive sculpture in pure granite.

Nycole glanced down at the glittering lake below from the lookout point atop the mountain, gazing past the waters to the tall, gleaming spires of Atlanta, standing tall and proud in the morning light.

"Thinking about jumping?"

The empath would have jumped out of her skin if she were any other person, but Nycole was no ordinary woman. Instead, she just rubbed her arms, slightly peppered with goose bumps from the light breeze.

"Kristo, you have better manners than to sneak up like that," she whispered.

He crouched down, running his long fingers over the short bits of grass that had managed to crop up here and there along the mountain face. "You couldn't have picked a harder place to meet? Mile and a half hike uphill AFTER breaking into the park?" Kristo glanced to where Nycole stared, to Atlanta. "Wanted one last look?"

"How did you find us?" She already knew the answer.

"Leanna."

The woman nodded. "Did you have any troubles?"

"There was one small snag," the shadow walker replied honestly. The empath raised an eyebrow, but Kristo merely instructed rather matter-of-factly, "Don't tell anyone."

Footsteps approached. Nycole whirled around. There, stood the others, walking up ever so ominously. Amon and Brett looked tired, a bit disheartened, but alright. No great surprise there. Robin and Leanna, there was no surprise there, either. The empath had been expecting their return, anticipating it, for several hours. Nycole had even been looking forward to Robin coming back, to having another female to talk to, one that hadn't lost her memories and emotions.

But, what she hadn't been expecting was him. The King. He stood, rather unsurely dawdling behind the rest. He was, after all, but a boy compared to the others. However, something dark hung over him.

_'Shhhh, Nycole. You cannot say anything.'_

It was Kristo, alive and active of the mind, crooning to her, specifically targeting his thoughts so her telepathy could not ignore them.

_'But he is not the King.' _She placed the thought in his mind, like setting a gem.

_'I know.'_

xxxx

Masquerade! Intrigue! Danger! Who knows? Um... I think I'm supposed to.


	31. Brittle

TOUCHING GOD

They had to leave Stone Mountain that morning, not too long after arriving there, not too long after the peak was kissed by the morning mist, rising up from the lake as it's base. Not long after the pink left the sky and the golden rays of day had finally poured down the side of the mountain and across the land. No. They could not stay in any one place too long, not with the other Thirteen so close on their heels. Especially not now with the King in play.

They drove for hours, endlessly long miles of road passing under the tires of the cars, as the day progressed. It seemed like they weren't heading anywhere, but Leanna, in the lead car with Amon and Brett, she seemed to know the way.

She lay in the back seat of the car, seeming limp and lifeless. It hadn't taken Amon long to understand that the assassin was saving her strength. For what, he couldn't tell. Leanna seemed to refuse to tell anyone honestly exactly was was on the horizon waiting for them at the end of their journey. She just lay there, her eyes barely open, her lips slightly parted, occasionally lifting her head just long enough to point out a change in direction. Whenever the former hunter turned to check on the woman, she hadn't moved even a millimeter.

Brett didn't seem to care much. It didn't surprise Amon much. Brett, in his distrust of the assassin, had insisted, downright required Leanna to ride in his car if she were to continue on this trek with them. He had also requested that Amon share the car with them, to keep Leanna in line. She hadn't instilled nor earned any trust, and, so, it suited Brett just fine that the girl remain perfectly still.

It meant less worries of a knife mysteriously materializing in his back.

She led them to the west for a while, towards downtown Atlanta. The buildings drifted past the cars as the pseudo caravan made there was slowly through rush hour traffic. The morning commute was well underway by the time they peeled out onto Interstate 85, turning North. Not too far after that, Leanna raised her head just for the millisecond to direct Brett to drive North onto 400, a rather similarly stagnant and stopped traffic jam.

"We're going back to the house?" Amon queried.

Leanna nodded. "Yes. Something has arrived there late. Something we need."

Amon turned to ask another question, but the assassin returned to her half slumber, plopped across the back seat, prone and unresponsive. He let out a heavy sigh and set his gaze upon the road, on all the cars around them.

There came an uneasiness to the situation. This, all this, seemed so important to so many. All the cars and trucks around them, they were filled with people who thought that this, commuting, working, stressing about everything commercial and fake. It wasn't anything important, just trivial things. And, yet, suddenly, Amon felt a growing wave of sympathy and concern for such seemingly "trivial" things. The former hunter sudden saw a tremendous beauty in the simple things to the world, and the drastic impermanence of it all.

And, suddenly, Amon felt very sad and lonely.

xxxx

_The sands swirled around her with a snapping, driving wind, cutting through her flesh, chilling her to the very bone. Those harsh grains scraped at her skin, tore away at her. Every inch of her felt raw._

_She crouched down, into a ball, trying to stay out of the howling wind._

_"What is it you want?" A voice bellowed in her ears._

_"I want nothing!" she screamed back, over the wind._

_The voice spoke again, loud and authoritative, as some fatherly figure speaking from the nothingness of the sand storm. "What is it you want, Leanna?"_

_It knew her name._

_"I want..."_

xxxx

The car ride was silent and awkward.

Nycole rubbed her arm dolefully, trying not to think about the intruder, the wolf in sheep's clothing in the back seat of the car behind her. There was something perverse, something dark and dangerous about this creature. It was a lie.

Kristo lied. She supposed that was the most important thing of all for her to note. Whoever, or whatever this thing was that sat beside her in that car, with Kristo and Geoff, it was so strange and demonic that the shadow walker felt the need to conceal it. Kristo played a dangerous game. This thing, posing as their King, it could have been anything. It could have been a monster, a ghost, a demon, a fabrication, a hallucination, or... Nycole didn't want to think about what else it could have been that was much worse than the other options around them.

The empath couldn't read this one. For however hard she tried, the girl could not lift the haze from over Oz's mind. But, that wasn't too odd. Sometimes, when it wasn't her place to see, telepathy and empathy did nothing to read a person. It was as if the powers that be were telling her it was not yet time to know, time to be certain and aware of particular things.

Nycole sighed, noting the change of direction. "We're going home."

Geoff nodded. 'Yup."

"Why?" the girl opened her mind. "There are people waiting to meet us."

The former bartender shrugged his shoulders. "Great. What else could be waiting for us this time?"

"Friends."

xxxx

"What the...?"

Brett couldn't finish formulating the question as they turned down the road. That road had been their home for so long, their safe haven, long before Japan, before their trip to far away lands. He ached to see black smoke rising from somewhere in the back of the sub development. It billowed and rose up in choking, curling swirls, as a shadow over the land.

"Fire..." Amon trailed off.

"The fire will be gone by now."

The former hunter barely turned in his seat, giving just a glance behind him to the girl in the back seat who had uttered the comment. Amon had to trust the creature there, the Oracle with her power to see the future. For the first time in his life, his faith lay in something, someone, and he had to follow it. Amon had no other choice in this case.

"The house?" Amon inquired, now more business-like about things.

Leanna didn't even open her eyes. "Gone."

"The Other Thirteen are responsible?" The hunter asked.

"Yes." The assassin hardly flinched.

"Anything left?"

"Anyone." Leanna now opened her eyes, that eerie, almost vacant and peaceful gaze piercing at Amon's heart and soul, knowingly, pervasively.

Brett gave a tap on Amon's arm, drawing his attention forward. "Look..."

xxxx

"Oh, my God!"

As soon as Raven stopped the car before that smoldering pile of ashes and wreckage, Robin leapt from the old, red Nissan Sentra. She rushed up to the house, or, really, what was left of it, and into the rubble, her arms outstretched. Another set of arms caught her and hugged the girl almost lovingly.

"Oh, Robin, thank God you're alright."

The teenager stepped back, as if suddenly realizing the weight of the situation and the abruptness of her emotions. "Miss Karasuma, it is so good to see you again."

Miho gave a slight smirk. It was good to see them again. Robin looked tired, a bit aged, perhaps, but otherwise fine. And, as the others piled from the car, Karasuma saw that all of them seemed in good health, including Amon. Even Sakaki, much to Karasuma's delight, looked good. They bore the weight of warriors and soldiers, the weight of having seen death, but all seemed well.

All save Kathain. Where the once perky, bubbly Oracle had been, there was a mental and emotional void, a nothingness with feet. It was unnatural and ill-seeming. This bleak nothingness that comprised Kathain Bowen's body could not have been by any conscious work of the Oracle herself.

Robin sensed this. "Miss Karasuma, I'd like you to meet Leanna."

Doujima raised an eyebrow, but Miho ignored it. "It is an honor."

"We should be leaving here, soon," the assassin ignored this newcomer as if the hunter were of no consequence. "Give me back what is rightfully mine."

"If you're not Kathain anymore," Miho's voice dropped low. "Then, it's not yours."

"You cannot keep it," Leanna stated firmly; she crouched down, reaching for a blade in the real world and outstretching her mental wings. "Do not make me reclaim it by force."

"LEANNA!" Amon rushed to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "No."

"Relinquish what is mine," the Oracle again demanded.

Miho sighed heavily, pulling something from her pocket. "I'll give it back." She stopped, looking down at the bundle of cloth napkin and cord, all bound up safely and tightly. "But not to you." Karasuma looked to Amon. "To you." She felt the thought crop up in Leanna before the words could form. "You are no longer the person who wrote it. You have no emotional connection to these people. You cannot be trusted with these secrets."

"Karasuma..." Sakaki held out his hand to take hers.

"I have always been an Oracle, and I shall always be an Oracle, in every life," Leanna argued softly but authoritatively.

The empath shook her head. "You would betray them in a heartbeat."

"I would do what is necessary. It may not be helpful to them. It might even be helpful to the Other Thirteen, but I serve time and fate alone. I serve no man or woman." Leanna whirled around, giving a sharp look, perhaps even a directive glare at Nycole. "And you should do well to remember your role as such, as well."

Leanna stalked off, deeper into the pile of fallen, charred floor joists, like a rodent into a picked out carcass, looking for some last morsel. Miho should have felt pride at such an act, but, instead, all the woman felt was a deep regret and an almost shame, as if she'd done some blasphemous thing in shouting at the Oracle. Karasuma should have stuck out her chest and strutted about. Instead, she just deflated sadly and looked away.

Sakaki put an arm around her. "You've missed a lot."

Miho looked into his eyes for a moment. "I've missed you." Haruto drew in a breath, but the hunter looked to Amon and Robin swiftly. "All of you."

Marcus called from the back of the pack. "I hate to be saying anything, but we need to be on our way."

"Without you," Sakaki breathed in Karasuma's ear.

Nycole almost gasped.

Miho looked at him with curious, worried eyes, but Sakaki went on. "Without me."

The Oracle, the empath, Nycole, felt her heart melt away, for some strange reason. She didn't know or understand why. But, something felt like tearing away at her. The girl wanted to run, to throw her arms around Sakaki and beg him to stay, but she was frozen in place.

_'It is not your choice.'_ Leanna's thoughts stood taller, spoke louder than any other's. _'He never was yours and never can be. Only time, only the present can be yours.'_

"Shut up."

_'I know you do not wish to hear these words, but we are drawing so very near to our destiny, to the final destiny of the Thirteen. We cannot afford to take any more chances.'_

_"_Shut up."

_'I would say I am sorry, but apologies are meaningless now.'_

"Shut up!"

"Nycole?" Sakaki put his arms around her, engulfing her, enfolding her in his warm embrace. "I'm so sorry, Nycole."

"Why?"

The young man gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I have to get Miss Karasuma and Miss Doujima safe, away from this all." He moved away from her, placing a finger under her chin and making him look directly into his eyes. "I can't keep you safe. I can't keep anyone safe. I'm just slowing you guys down." Nycole went to argue, but Sakaki just shook his head slowly. "No. I'm putting you into worse danger than I could ever try to keep you out of, protect you from."

"No..." it was a pitiful, meek mew.

"I have to." And, with that simple statement, Sakaki withdrew from Nycole, taking his warmth away from the empath. He stopped just once to squeeze her hand reassuringly. "Be careful."

Amon turned to Robin as he pocketed the book. "Go with them."

"No."

The dark man cocked his head to one side slightly, but repeated the order. "Robin, go with them."

"I won't."

Nycole blinked.

Amon walked to the girl, taking her hand. At any other time, Robin would have been utterly shocked at the former hunter placing a hand upon her in any tender sense, but this was so gentle, so soft and so utterly natural. It felt so right, so utterly real and completely true. And, yet, the teenage Craft user would have none of it.

"You have to, Robin. I can't keep this up." Amon looked away. "I can't keep bringing you into danger. Brushes with Solomon and the Other Thirteen. Things are getting too dangerous for me to allow you to stay."

"No."

"We risk letting the Arcanum falling into the hands of both Solomon and the Other Thirteen," the big man pointed out knowingly.

Again, Robin stood her ground. "No."

Amon closed his eyes. "Please."

"No."

Nycole smiled to herself that Robin refused to give up on her position.

"You must," Amon sounded like he was pleading, if the man even knew the word. "I'll make you."

"You can't."

He nodded. "I didn't think so."

"I'm coming with you. We've been together since the Factory; we can't split up now." Robin gave a small bow of her head before flashing a teasing smile. "Besides, who will be there to keep Nycole sane if I leave?"

"Then, it's settled," Brett noted.

Nycole closed her eyes. "Good-bye, Sakaki."

xxxx

_"Things are coming to an end, my child. You are performing exceptionally well." The voice sounded pleased with the girl. "Name it. Anything you desire."_

_"I desire nothing."_

_The winds whistled menacingly for a moment before dying for the voice. "Nothing? You must want something. Just name it."_

_Leanna shook her head. "I desire nothing..." She breathed. "However, it would be of great assistance to know what the Thirteen must do. It would aid their arrival at their destiny if I had the answers."_

_"You already have them."_

xxxx

Sakaki and Karasuma were saying their goodbyes to Robin. Amon took that as his chance to break away from them. No doubt the empath had already poured over the little bundle, scouring it for all the secrets it could possibly hold. She might have even scryed it once or twice. However, now the former hunter needed to know for himself exactly what that parcel contained.

He walked the ruins of the house, trying desperately to ignore the others and be ignored by them. Amon always had been good at that. At the STN-J, at Solomon, he could blend in, and be forgotten. At Harry's, a woman might try to catch his eye every now and then, but, with a quick and subtle change, a slight look, Amon could turn her away. It wasn't hard to keep the others from him, to block them out. It only took a turn away and a casual, but sullen walk, with his head hung low, to send off even the most curious Nycole.

Carefully, reverently, Amon took the bundle from his pocket and unwrapped the silk cloth, feeling the cool material slip between his fingers. The leather bound book had a simple cord tied around it; the wrap gave way under Amon's prying hands.

He paused for a moment beyond that, drawing in a deep breath. _'Do I really want to know these things that Kathain saw? Do I really want to know my own future?'_

"I have to..."

xxxx

_A day of great reckoning is coming. The end shall become the beginning, and the beginning the end. And the Thirteen shall break through into a new world, into a new dawn and a brand new day. _

_A new era will begin with them._

_They must go to the desert, to the pyramid buried beneath the sands. The all seeing eye must be opened. The world must be opened again. They shall walk the maze again and find the doorway, become the doorway. _

_The eye sees all._

xxxx

There, in the book, someone had taped a dollar bill. On that green, tattered scrap of paper, there had been printed a pyramid. Amon had seen it so many times before in his travels that the man had never really thought about the seal on the back of the dollar. Yet there, it was.

Long before the seal was a symbol of America, it was the seal of Solomon.

Amon slammed the book shut. He'd seen far too much already.

xxxx

Kristo found Leanna easily. The house had never been that big, just a two story colonial. The designer also hadn't been that smart about dividing the space. And, now that the entire place had been flattened by the Other Thirteen's cleansing fire, razed from the earth, there weren't too many places that Leanna could have been amidst the still smoking ashes.

Even still, Kristo didn't have to search; he knew where she would be.

In the older days, before Marcus's intervention, before his... interference, they had been a peaceful and fairly calm group. It was after Marcus had set everything into motion that things became crazy. However, even in all that turmoil, there had still been one place that always seemed to remain sacred to Kathain. Long ago, when a water main broke, they were too poor to replace the tile that had been ripped up to fix the pipe, and, so, Kathain and Nycole, being the artists of the bunch, made a concrete piece with a spiraling labyrinth on it to cover the spot.

And, sure, enough, there she was, Leanna, crouched over that spot. Her fingertips rubbed the carved grooves, feeling the pattern beneath. She drew upon the power of the energy that had been put into the labyrinth over the years.

"Getting lost or losing yourself?" Kristo asked of the air its self.

However, it was Leanna who responded. "It is a waste of time to ponder such things. We must be off."

"I was wrong about you," the man breathed rather nonchalantly, giving a slight kick at a bit of rubble; the charred remnant of the house gave way under even the gentlest of nudges.

"It matters not." Leanna dusted off her hands. "You are wasting your time."

She rose, but Kristo stepped in your path. "You're not touching God."

"What?"

"You're not touching God," Kristo replied. "When you fight, when you act, I thought you were touching God. I thought you would loosen yourself of all those emotional distractions and excess thought that makes a warrior weak." Leanna just gazed into his eyes. "But you don't. You never had any to begin with. You can only touch God if you're giving all that up."

"But what if I have already given all that up long ago?" Leanna played along for a moment, trying to study, to learn Kristo's game.

The shadow walker gave a shrug. "You're not human without emotions."

"If I never had any, would that make me dead, or would that make me God?" Leanna baited him, cautiously gaging Kristo's responses in a quest to understand the information that this man demanded of her and to know the motives of what could potentially be her enemy again.

Kristo turned to walk away, but stopped suddenly. "You had better watch yourself."

"And you," Leanna warned. "I know what you are traveling with. I know what this King of yours really is. And I know what he will do to the others if you let him."

The man wheeled around. "What?"

Leanna strode up, drawing close to him. "Your King is not what he seems."

"What do you know?" Kristo leaned down to her ear.

"Your King, as you call him, is not what he seems."

The shadow walker just nodded his head with long, slow dips. "I know." Kristo smoothed a stray lock of his ebony hair. "I've been trying to keep that on the low. I want to... see what this interloper has planned."

"You will get the others killed if you do not play this game right."

Kristo shook his head. "I wouldn't allow it."

"Then just exercise good caution."

xxxx

CAUTION!


End file.
